More information on our data collection procedures
This page will offer some additional information on the technologies we use and on the way we collect data on this website.
When browsing this website we will collect some data, as described in the privacy policy.
This includes your IP address as well as information about your browser and operating system. This data will be stored in our access logs, and also in our error logs if an error should occur. This data is used to analyze our own website in order to improve it, to analyze errors and to solve bugs, to analyze suspicious traffic caused by bots, and finally to analyze potential attacks by hackers.
We are collaborating with third parties providing advertisement, web analytics services, as well as social tools. Those partners will use software that will store cookies on your computer, in order to either enhance your user experience, or to provide useful information to us that will help us to improve our websites, our software, and our services. See our privacy policy for additional information.
If you do not wish any data to be stored by us or by our partners, then do not visit any of our websites.
When creating an account on this website you may chose a username that can be different from your real name, and you will have to provide the following information: your e-mail address, your birthday, and a password. You will also have to enter a security code that shall block bots, you will have to agree to the terms of use and to the community rules (opt-in), and you will have to indicate if you wish that the site should send you notifications via e-mail.
You password will not be stored on our server, and it will not be stored in any logfile. Your password will be encrypted, and only the encrypted hash string will be kept in our database. Your birthday is required so that we can prevent children that are less than 13 years old from creating an account, as requested by national and international law.
After creating an account you will receive an e-mail containing a link that will allow us to verity your e-mail address. After having verified your e-mail address you may log into the website and use all services that are available for free.
If you are less than 16 years old, then you will not be able to access any features unless you specify your country first. This will allow us to prevent teenagers that are less than 16 years old to access the website if they live in specific EU countries, as requested by EU law. If you cannot access the site because of your age, then you may chose one of the 3 following options: 1) correct your birthday and/or country if you made a mistake, 2) keep your inactive account until you reached the required age, or 3) close your account and remove all data that was stored upon login. Please note that chosing option 2. may force us to close your account after a short period of time in certain countries, including the EU.
We will not have to provide your real name, your address, your phone number, credit cards, bank information, medical information, or any other personal information on this website, which means that apart from your e-mail, your IP, and maybe your country (your country will be public, while your e-mail will not be public unless you chose to make it public (opt-in)) your account will be completely anonymous and it will not be possible to link it to you personally, even not for us. Filling out your profile and providing personal information will be completely optional. As soon as you order items that will have to be shipped to you via mail on our site, you will have to provide a valid address of course. You may also provide personal information that will allow us to identify you in case you lost your login information for example, although this will be optional too.
Some of our websites allow users to create virtual workspaces and also to create accounts for other users. Such "virtual" accounts do not require an e-mail address, but they still require age verification by the user after first loggin in. Owners of such a "virtual" account may also receive their password by the creator of the workspace, and the creator of the workspace may then also be able to view and even to store a "virtual" account password in cleartext. An owner of such a "virtual" account will be able to turn his or her account into a standard account by providing a valid e-mail address, in this case a new password that will be encrypted can be provided, and the cleartext password will be deleted. While "virtual" accounts do not pose any security threat as such, we still recommend to turn them into standard accounts as quickly as possible.
When closing your account all of the data mentioned above will be deleted.
Using social networking and collaborative features
This website may offer social networking features, which means that you may become "friends" with other users, you message them or chat with them, you may post messages in your own blog or microblog, you may comment your own posts or other users' posts, you may create your own homepage, upload photos and files, and you may also create content and link yourself to existing content on this site.
All of this requires a lot of data to be stored. Some of this data will be stored in a certralized way in our main database, while other data will be store decentralized in various locations on the website in form of files, or in form of database entries. While data in our main database can be automatically deleted when closing an account, it may be impossible to automatically remove all decentralized data linked to you, especially if some of the content has been created in collaboration with other users. We therefore stronly recommend to review the site before closing your account, and to remove all data you wish not to remain on the site. Note that you are not allowed to destroy content that has been created in collaboration with other users of the site, unless you have their consent.
You will also be able to fill in profile information and to create a personal website. We strongly recommend to be careful when publishing personal information on any website, and you should also be aware that some of the information you will enter and some of the content you will create will be publically visible on the website.
Incidents will be reported to local authorities within 72 hours. Incidients will also be reported to affected users via e-mail within 72 hours.
