Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy (“the Policy”) informs you about how World Archi Design Magazine (hereinafter collectively also “we” or “WAD”) handle your personal data (hereinafter also “Your Data”). We attach great importance to protecting your personal rights as a user (hereinafter “User” or “You”) and the personal rights of the users of our products, comply with the applicable data protection regulations and take the necessary measures to protect Your Data.

Please note that this Privacy Policy does not contain an exhaustive description of our data processing activities and that individual matters may be described in whole or in part by specific data protection notices.

For all data of other persons that You disclose to us, please make sure that You are authorized to do so, and that this data is correct. Such persons must be made aware of this Privacy Policy.

Sections 2 to 7 contain general information on the processing of personal data. Specific information on our online offers can be found in section 8.

Third-party websites that can be accessed via our websites are not subject to the data protection regulations set out here. We assume no responsibility or liability for the observance of data protection by third-party websites.

“Personal data” are all details and information that relate to a specific or identifiable person. This includes, for example, contact data such as name, telephone number, address, or e-mail address as well as other information that You provide to us, for example during registration, as part of an order, or when participating in competitions or surveys.

“Processing” means any handling of personal data, including but not limited to the collection, storage, management, use, transmission, disclosure, or deletion of Your Data.

Your Data will only be used for the respective purposes communicated to you in this Privacy Policy. We take the necessary measures to ensure that your personal data is protected against loss, theft, and misuse.

Among other things, we process personal data that we receive from, collect from, or create for customers, interested parties, website visitors, employees, job applicants, service providers, suppliers, and other persons. We also process data of persons who are the subject of our media coverage. These are, among others, the following types of personal data:

• —Contact and identification data, including first and last name, postal address, telephone number, e-mail address, employer name and location, profession, social media account information or user account information
• —Contractual data, for example information on services provided or purchased and remuneration
• —Communication and content data, for example electronic or written correspondence, telephone or video conversations
• —Marketing data
• —Meta and usage data and other technical data, for example IP address, MAC address of the smartphone or computer, details about your device and settings, cookies

In addition to the data You give us directly, the categories of personal data we receive about You from third parties include information from contractual partners of ours regarding the use or provision of services, such as media coverage, payments made and services provided.

To the extent permitted, we also obtain certain data from publicly accessible sources such as the commercial register, media and the internet, or from authorities and other third parties. This includes information from public registers, information relating to Your professional functions and activities, and information about You in correspondence and meetings with third parties.

We process your personal data for the following purposes, among others:

• —Provisioning, maintenance and servicing of individual user accounts, and connecting them with third-party accounts based on the linking process performed by the User
• —Transactional email activities related to user accounts
• —Offer and further development of our offers, services and websites, and other platforms on which we are present
• —Purchase or order of e-magazines and e-reports
• —Support for our customers, and communication with You and third parties, including the processing of requests
• —Collaboration on projects linked and explicitly shared with other users and organizations
• —User behaviour and trend reports on an anonymized and aggregated level
• —Design of our media contributions, and participation in contests
• —Billing and accounting, including bank details, billing addresses and payment information collected to carry out billing for the products provided
• —Advertising and marketing, some of which is behaviour-based, unless you have objected to the use of your data. If we send you advertising as an existing customer, you can object at any time free of charge and we will add you to a blocking list
• —Market and opinion research, and media monitoring
• —Automated form fills for registered users when placing enquiries, so our customers can respond to the specific request
• —Assertion of legal claims and defence in connection with legal disputes and official proceedings
• —Acquisition and sale of business units, companies or parts of companies, and associated measures for business management and compliance with legal, regulatory and internal obligations
• —Video surveillance to maintain house rights, building and facility security, and protection of our employees and assets, including access controls, visitor lists, network and mail scanners and telephone records
• —Guarantees of our operations, in particular IT, our websites and other platforms

We always process your personal data in accordance with the applicable data protection regulations.

When processing personal data for the purpose of handling a contractual relationship, the contractual relationship serves as the legal basis. This also applies to processing operations that are necessary for the implementation of pre-contractual measures. In the case of data processing that is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation, the relevant legal obligation serves as the legal basis.

For further processing we rely on our overriding interest, for example to adapt and continuously improve our offers to the needs of our customers and to carry out marketing activities, so we can offer You suitable products or services and display advertisements that are relevant to You. This is an important basis for the financing and further development of our offers.

We have taken measures to mitigate the impact of data processing for our users. In particular, when we process personal data about children we take specific precautions, such as excluding them from advertising campaigns. We have compared our interest with the interest of our users and concluded that our data processing does not unduly affect their interests or fundamental rights. If You have a different opinion, You have the right to object to this data processing at any time within the legally permissible framework.

In cases where we obtain consent for data processing, this is deemed to be the legal basis.

In the context of media reporting, personal data is disclosed to the public in certain cases where this is permitted under data protection law. We do not otherwise disclose personal data to third parties unless this is required by law, justified by a legitimate interest, ordered by a court decision, consented to, or because third parties want to and are allowed to use data for their own purposes within the limits permitted by law. Disclosure to third parties may take place:

• —for the legal protection of users
• —to meet legal requirements
• —for the defence and protection of our rights or other legitimate interests
• —to comply with the Terms of Use or this Privacy Policy
• —to remedy technical difficulties of the products
• —to cooperate with service partners who require the transmission of data for order or contract processing, limited to the minimum necessary for their order fulfilment. In particular, for chargeable products, credit card data will be forwarded to the relevant credit card organization
• —to cooperate with service partners who support us, in particular in marketing, in the analysis of certain technical data and in the processing or storage of data
• —to enable our partners to respond to enquiries placed and submitted by the User personally

We work with a limited number of trusted external service partners who have been carefully selected by us and meet high data protection and security standards. Data is disclosed to service partners only insofar as this is necessary for the provision of the services offered.

In the event of a sale, merger or other reorganization of some or all of our company assets, personal information may be transferred, assigned, sold or otherwise shared with third parties as part of that transaction or reorganization.

If necessary and appropriate for the data processing described in this Privacy Policy, we may also transfer your personal data to third parties abroad. Whenever possible, Your Data will be processed in the USA. If data could be transferred to a country that does not have an adequate legal level of data protection, we require that the recipient takes appropriate measures to protect personal data.

In certain cases we may also transfer data without such agreements in accordance with data protection requirements, for example if you have consented to the disclosure, or if the disclosure is necessary for the performance of the contract, for the establishment, exercise or enforcement of legal claims, or for overriding public interests. Particularly in the case of website tracking, data may be transferred to countries without adequate data protection.

We use and retain Your Data only as long as it is necessary according to the processing purpose in question, there is another legal basis for it, or we have an overriding legitimate interest in it. We retain data that we hold on the basis of a contractual relationship with you at least as long as the contractual relationship exists and limitation periods for possible claims by us run, or statutory or contractual retention obligations exist.

We use various technologies, including cookies, web beacons and similar tracking technologies, to collect information about your interactions with our platforms. This information may include, but is not limited to: your IP address, browser type and version, operating system, referral and exit pages, clickstream data, time and date of visits, viewed pages, and time spent on the pages.

8.1 Non-anonymous users of our website

Within the scope of the registration process, the enquiry forms, the download of files, the registration for a newsletter and the participation in a contest or sweepstakes, we collect personal data from you such as first and last name, address, e-mail address and possibly other data such as telephone numbers or date of birth, as well as all data entered voluntarily by the registered user in their user profile.

We use this data to process the enquiries received, to enable and verify your access, and to notify or publish the winners of contests and sweepstakes. As a basis for access to online products, data on individual usage behaviour is also collected and evaluated in order to improve our products. Your data will also be used for customer care and marketing purposes, for example pop-ups.

The online transmission of personal data between the user browser and our servers is encrypted using the HTTPS protocol. To enable the functionality of this encryption technology, the user is required to use current browser versions.

8.2 Anonymous users of our websites

When visiting our websites, we and third parties collect, store and use data from registered as well as non-registered users, collected via so-called cookies and similar techniques. These are text files stored on the user system that enable an analysis of the use of the products. This technology allows us to recognize individual users as returning visitors and to provide them with individualized services and products. In general, the use of cookies serves to improve our services and make them more effective and secure. Such cookies may also be necessary, for example, to use shopping carts or payment functions.

Users of our websites can deactivate or restrict the storage of cookies via the settings of their browser or with the help of software, or they can delete stored cookies. The procedure for controlling and deleting cookies depends on the browser used. However, this may hinder the functionality of the products and make it difficult to optimize the online services for users.

The use of our digital offerings is also measured and evaluated by means of various technical systems, predominantly from third-party providers. These measurements can be both anonymous and personal. These technologies are used in particular to analyze the surfing behaviour of users and to measure reach. Reach measurement can be used to determine how many people can be reached with an advertiser advertising. The information collected can also be used for marketing purposes, to improve the products and the websites, to evaluate user behaviour, and to deliver and design advertising formats tailored to target groups.

8.3 Plug-ins and other integrations of third-party offers

Our digital offerings are networked with third-party functions and systems in a variety of ways, for example by integrating plug-ins from third-party social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube or Instagram, or when you visit our presence on third-party websites. If you have a user account with these third parties, it may also be possible for them to measure and evaluate your use of our digital offerings. In the process, further personal data such as IP address, personal browser settings and other parameters may be transmitted to these third parties and stored there.

You can find out what information these third parties receive and how it is used in the data protection notices of the respective third-party networks. There you will also find further information about your rights, setting options for protecting your privacy, and your right to object to the creation of user profiles.

9.1 Right to information and correction

Within the legal framework, you have the right to receive information from us at any time and free of charge about whether and which of your personal data we process. In addition, you can request that we correct or complete incorrect data about you in our systems.

9.2 Right to deletion and restriction

You have the right to request that we delete or restrict the processing of your personal data. To execute your right, you may request the deletion of data and therewith your account through the settings within your user account; or, if you encounter any issues with this, send an email to info@worldarchidesign.com with the note “Delete my personal data”. We will process your request promptly and in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

Please note that even after your request to delete your personal data, we may have to retain it due to legal or contractual retention obligations, such as for billing purposes, or may retain it due to our own legitimate retention interests, and in this case only restrict or block your data as necessary. Furthermore, deletion of your data may result in you no longer being able to obtain or use the services you have registered for.

9.3 Right of objection

You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data, which you can assert with us as described in section 8.2.

9.4 Right to data portability

Where applicable, you may also exercise your right to data portability.

9.5 Revocation of consent

You can revoke your consent to data processing at any time, in principle with effect for the future. In the event of a revocation, we may no longer be able to provide you with personalized use of free or paid products.

9.6 Right to complain

Where applicable, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the competent supervisory authority regarding data processing operations.

9.7 General note

Please note that we reserve the right to enforce the restrictions provided for by law, for example if we are obliged to retain or process certain data, have an overriding interest in doing so, or require it for the assertion of claims.

Please note that the exercise of these rights may conflict with contractual agreements and may have consequences such as the premature termination of the contract or cost consequences. We will inform you in advance if this is not already contractually regulated. The exercise of your rights under data protection law generally requires that you clearly prove your identity. To assert your rights, please contact us by e-mail using the contact option specified in section 11.

10.1 Anonymous users

If you do not want retargeting to be carried out when you visit our websites as a non-registered or non-logged-in, that is anonymous, user, we are unfortunately unable to make this setting, as we cannot establish a link between an anonymous user of our websites and a person registered with us. However, you can prevent such retargeting yourself by deactivating the storage of cookies in your browser settings.

If you do not wish us to carry out any of the other processing of your personal data mentioned in section 8.2, please do so in accordance with the instructions in the description of the respective data processing in that section.

10.2 Registered and logged-in users

If you no longer wish to receive advertising targeting when visiting our website as a registered and logged-in user, you can send an e-mail to info@worldarchidesign.com with the note “No advertising targeting as logged-in user”. If you also do not wish to receive retargeting when you are not logged in, please proceed as described in section 10.1.

10.3 Marketing measures

If you do not want your personal data to be used for any marketing activities, you can send an e-mail to info@worldarchidesign.com with the note “No marketing activities”.

10.4 Passing on within the group

If you do not wish your personal data to be shared within the WAD company, you can send an e-mail to info@worldarchidesign.com with the note “No sharing within the group”.

10.5 Newsletter

Unsubscribing from a newsletter is possible at any time via your user account or the relevant link in the newsletter itself.

If you have any questions or suggestions about the data protection practised by us, or if you would like information about or wish to exercise your rights, you can contact the Data Protection Officer at the address below. For the fastest possible response to your enquiry, we recommend that you send it by e-mail.

We expressly reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time. If such adjustments are made, we will publish them immediately on our website. It is your responsibility to inform yourself about the currently valid version of the Privacy Policy on our website. We therefore recommend that you consult this Privacy Policy regularly.