Privacy Policy

Last Updated: October 14th, 2023

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully before using the Platform (as defined below).

This Privacy Policy describes how we might collect, store, use, and share information, governs how we treat this information, and lets you know your associated rights.

This Privacy Policy applies to the Website https://matthiasott.com (the “Website”), the services and information available via the Website, including Matthias’s email newsletters and any online location controlled by us that links to this Privacy Policy (collectively, the “Services”). The Services, together with the Website, are referred to as the “Platform”.

We are committed to protecting your privacy and believe that you should have full control over your private data. We will not use or share your information with anyone except as described in this Privacy Policy. By using this website, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, please do not use our Services.

We recommend that you read this Privacy Policy in full to ensure you are fully informed. The responsible data controller for the Platform and all related services is Matthias Ott:

Matthias Ott
Hauptstr. 58
73773 Aichwald
GERMANY

If you still have any questions or concerns, please contact us at legal@matthiasott.com.

Summary of Key Points

This summary provides key points from our privacy notice, but you can find out more details about any of these topics by clicking the link following each key point or by using our table of contents below to find the section you are looking for.

What personal information do we process? When you visit, use, or navigate our Services, we may process personal information depending on how you interact with us and the Services, the choices you make, and the products and features you use. Learn more about personal information you disclose to us.

Do we process any sensitive personal information? We do not process sensitive personal information.

Do we receive any information from third parties? We do not receive any information from third parties.

How do we process your information? We process your information to provide, improve, and administer our Services, communicate with you, for security and fraud prevention, and to comply with law. We may also process your information for other purposes with your consent. We process your information only when we have a valid legal reason to do so. Learn more about how we process your information.

In what situations and with which parties do we share personal information? We may share information in specific situations and with specific third parties. Learn more about when and with whom we share your personal information.

How do we keep your information safe? We have organizational and technical processes and procedures in place to protect your personal information. However, no electronic transmission over the internet or information storage technology can be guaranteed to be 100% secure, so we cannot promise or guarantee that hackers, cybercriminals, or other unauthorized third parties will not be able to defeat our security and improperly collect, access, steal, or modify your information. Learn more about how we keep your information safe.

What are your rights? Depending on where you are located geographically, the applicable privacy law may mean you have certain rights regarding your personal information. Learn more about your privacy rights.

How do you exercise your rights? The easiest way to exercise your rights is by submitting a data subject access request, or by contacting us. We will consider and act upon any request in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

Want to learn more about what we do with any information we collect? Review the privacy notice in full.

Navigating this Privacy Policy

To help you navigate our Privacy Policy, we have divided the Policy into numbered sections. The sections are as follows:

  1. Your Consent to This Privacy Policy
  2. The Information We Collect
  3. How We Process and Use This Information
  4. What Legal Bases Do We Rely on to Process Your Information?
  5. When and With Whom We Share This Information
  6. Is Your Information Transferred Internationally?
  7. How Long Do We Keep Your Information?
  8. Keeping Your Data Safe
  9. Do We Collect Information From Minors?
  10. Accessing and Updating Your Information
  11. What Are Your Privacy Rights?
  12. Controls For Do-Not-Track Features
  13. Notice of Privacy Rights to California Residents
  14. Notice of Privacy Rights to Virginia Residents
  15. Do Other Regions Have Specific Privacy Rights?
  16. Third-Party Sites
  17. Adobe Typekit Webfonts
  18. Complaints
  19. Changes to This Privacy Policy
  20. Contact Us

You may also print a copy of this Privacy Policy using the “Print” feature available from most web browsers.

1. Your Consent to This Privacy Policy

By using the Platform, or otherwise providing information to us, you agree to this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with this Privacy Policy, please do not use the Platform. You may withdraw your consent by requesting deletion of your information or otherwise exercising your rights in accordance with Section 11 (What Are Your Privacy Rights?).

2. The Information We Collect

In Short: We collect personal information that you provide to us.

Our Platform gives us the opportunity to communicate with people interested in Matthias’s blog, newsletters, podcast, and his other activities and interests. The Platform also provides you with opportunities to participate in exchanges on these topics and to receive additional information on all of the above. To provide these Services, and to otherwise conduct our business via the Platform, we rely on information provided by and collected from our users. This information consists of the following:

2.1 Personal Information.

We collect personal information that you voluntarily provide to us when you express an interest in obtaining information about us or our products and Services, when you participate in activities on the Services, or otherwise when you contact us.

The personal information that we collect depends on the context of your interactions with us and the Services, the choices you make, and the products and features you use. The personal information we collect may include the following:

2.2 Sensitive Information.

We do not process sensitive information.

2.3 Payment Data.

We may collect data necessary to process your payment if you make purchases, such as your payment instrument number, and the security code associated with your payment instrument. All payment data is stored by Stripe, Inc.. You may find their privacy notice link(s) here: https://stripe.com/privacy.

All personal information that you provide to us must be true, complete, and accurate, and you must notify us of any changes to such personal information.

2.4 Webmentions.

By supporting Webmentions on your website, you explicitly signal your wish for linked websites to process and publish your public replies to their content. You can at any time request the removal of one or all Webmentions originating from your website.

An incoming Webmention request is by design a request for publishing a comment from elsewhere on the web; this is what the protocol was designed for and why it is active on your website. Commonly, received Webmentions are displayed as comments on a web page. This means that a copy of your content is displayed on the website you link to in your own post.

The personal data being processed and published might include:

Legal Basis: The publishing of incoming Webmentions is based on the legitimate interest to enable interaction with the readers of this website (Art. 6(1) lit. f GDPR), following the design intention of the Webmention protocol.

2.4 Automatically Collected Technical and Device-Related Information.

In Short: Some information — such as your Internet Protocol (IP) address and/or browser and device characteristics — is collected automatically when you visit our Services.

We automatically collect certain information when you visit, use, or navigate the Services. This information does not reveal your specific identity (like your name or contact information) but may include device and usage information, such as your IP address, browser and device characteristics, operating system, language preferences, referring URLs, device name, country, location, information about how and when you use our Services, and other technical information. This information is primarily needed to maintain the security and operation of our Services, and for our internal analytics and reporting purposes.

We do not use any tracking technology, like advertising cookies, that might be used to personally identify you or create user profiles across the World Wide Web.

The information we collect includes:

2.5 Anonymous Information.

Our Platform also collects, processes, and/or uses information that does not identify you or your devices, including Personal Information that has been made anonymous by: (i) removing identifying fields and aggregating the information with other information so that individual subjects of the information cannot be re-identified, or (ii) anonymizing the information with techniques that remove or perturb the identifying data so as to prevent re-identification of the anonymized information (collectively, “Anonymous Information”). Information that meets these criteria might include, for example, statistical information (e.g., page views and hit counts), and general tracking information about how the Website is used.

3. How We Process and Use This Information

In Short: We process your information to provide, improve, and administer our Services, communicate with you, for security and fraud prevention, and to comply with law. We may also process your information for other purposes with your consent.

We process your personal information for a variety of reasons, depending on how you interact with our Services, including:

4. What Legal Bases Do We Rely on to Process Your Information?

In Short: We only process your personal information when we believe it is necessary and we have a valid legal reason (i.e., legal basis) to do so under applicable law, like with your consent, to comply with laws, to provide you with services to enter into or fulfill our contractual obligations, to protect your rights, or to fulfill our legitimate business interests.

If you are located in the EU or UK, this section applies to you.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and UK GDPR require us to explain the valid legal bases we rely on in order to process your personal information. As such, we may rely on the following legal bases to process your personal information:

If you are located in Canada, this section applies to you.

We may process your information if you have given us specific permission (i.e., express consent) to use your personal information for a specific purpose, or in situations where your permission can be inferred (i.e., implied consent). You can withdraw your consent at any time.

In some exceptional cases, we may be legally permitted under applicable law to process your information without your consent, including, for example:

5. When and With Whom We Share This Information

We value your privacy, and we share the information we collect only in the manner set out below.

5.1 Our Service Providers.

We engage third parties to perform functions on our behalf, and these may include maintaining the Platform, collecting information, responding to and sending email or other messages, and other functions useful to our business. In this capacity, we may provide service providers with Personal Information, Automatically Collected Information, and Anonymous Information as applicable. The following are examples:

We require our service providers to contractually commit to protect the privacy and security of the Personal Information they process on our behalf.

5.2 Other Users.

When you share personal information (for example, by posting comments, contributions, or other content to the Services) or otherwise interact with public areas of the Services, such personal information may be viewed by all users and may be publicly made available outside the Services in perpetuity. Similarly, other users will be able to view descriptions of your activity, communicate with you within our Services, and view your profile.

5.3 Questions of Harm; Legal Process.

We may disclose your Personal Information and Automatically Collected Information to third parties, including law enforcement agencies, attorneys, and private investigator organizations, where it is necessary, or where we have a good faith belief that it is necessary:

While you are not able to opt out of this use of information, we will take reasonable steps to limit such use and disclose only the information we reasonably believe is necessary for the above purposes. If we receive legal process calling for the disclosure of your Personal Information, where required under applicable law, we will attempt to notify you within a reasonable amount of time, unless such notification is not permitted.

6. Is Your Information Transferred Internationally?

In Short: We may transfer, store, and process your information in countries other than your own.

Our servers are located in Germany. If you are using our Services, please be aware that some of your information may be transferred to, stored, and processed by us in our facilities and by those third parties with whom we may share your personal information (see "When and With Whom We Share This Information" above), in the United States, and other countries.

If you are a resident in the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom (UK), or Switzerland, then these countries may not necessarily have data protection laws or other similar laws as comprehensive as those in your country. However, we will take all necessary measures to protect your personal information in accordance with this privacy notice and applicable law.

7. How Long Do We Keep Your Information?

In Short: We keep your information only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this privacy notice unless otherwise required by law.

We will only keep your personal information for as long as it is necessary for the purposes set out in this privacy notice, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law (such as tax, accounting, or other legal requirements).

When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, we will either delete or anonymize such information, or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.

8. Keeping Your Data Safe

In Short: We aim to protect your personal information through a system of organizational and technical security measures.

We have implemented appropriate technical and organizational security measures designed to protect the security of any personal information we process. For example, for all our Services, all personal information is transmitted using HTTPS, encrypting all data sent between the browser and the server. However, please also remember that we cannot guarantee that the internet itself is 100% secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, transmission of personal information to and from our Services is at your own risk. You should only access the services within a secure environment.

9. Do We Collect Information From Minors?

In Short: No, we do not knowingly collect data from or market to children under 18 years of age.

We do not knowingly solicit data from or market to children under 18 years of age. By using the Services, you represent that you are at least 18 or that you are the parent or guardian of such a minor and consent to such minor dependent’s use of the Services. If we learn that personal information from users less than 18 years of age has been collected, we will deactivate the account and take reasonable measures to promptly delete such data from our records. If you become aware of any data we may have collected from children under age 18, please contact us at legal@matthiasott.com.

10. Accessing and Updating Your Information

If you would like to review, correct, or update the Personal Information that you have provided to us, or if you would like to request an electronic copy of your Personal Information, you may make such requests by emailing us at legal@matthiasott.com. If you email us, please provide your full name, email address you have used to access the Services, and specify the type of request you are making. We will verify your identity using the email address we have in our records.

11. What Are Your Privacy Rights?

In Short: In some regions, such as the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom (UK), Switzerland, and Canada, you have rights that allow you greater access to and control over your personal information. You may review, change, or terminate your account at any time.

In some regions (like the EEA, UK, Switzerland, and Canada), you have certain rights under applicable data protection laws. These may include the right (i) to request access and obtain a copy of your personal information, (ii) to request rectification or erasure; (iii) to restrict the processing of your personal information; (iv) if applicable, to data portability; and (v) not to be subject to automated decision-making. In certain circumstances, you may also have the right to object to the processing of your personal information. You can make such a request by contacting us by using the contact details provided in the section „Contact Us" below.

We will consider and act upon any request in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

If you are located in the EEA or UK and you believe we are unlawfully processing your personal information, you also have the right to complain to your Member State data protection authority or UK data protection authority.

If you are located in Switzerland, you may contact the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner.

Withdrawing your consent: If we are relying on your consent to process your personal information, which may be express and/or implied consent depending on the applicable law, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. You can withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us by using the contact details provided in the section „Contact Us" below.

However, please note that this will not affect the lawfulness of the processing before its withdrawal nor, when applicable law allows, will it affect the processing of your personal information conducted in reliance on lawful processing grounds other than consent.

Opting out of marketing and promotional communications: You can unsubscribe from our marketing and promotional communications at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the emails that we send, or by contacting us using the details provided in the section „Contact Us" below. You will then be removed from the marketing lists. However, we may still communicate with you — for example, to send you service-related messages that are necessary for the administration and use of your account, to respond to service requests, or for other non-marketing purposes.

If you have questions or comments about your privacy rights, you may email us at legal@matthiasott.com.

12. Controls For Do-Not-Track Features

Most web browsers and some mobile operating systems and mobile applications include a Do-Not-Track ("DNT") feature or setting you can activate to signal your privacy preference not to have data about your online browsing activities monitored and collected. At this stage no uniform technology standard for recognizing and implementing DNT signals has been finalized. While we will try to respect your DNT browser signals whenever possible, we can not guarantee to always respond to DNT browser signals or any other mechanism that automatically communicates your choice not to be tracked online. If a standard for online tracking is adopted that we must follow in the future, we will inform you about that practice in a revised version of this privacy notice.

13. Notice of Privacy Rights to California Residents

California provides additional rights to California residents, including through the California Consumer Privacy Act as replaced by the California Privacy Rights Act (“CCPA”). This section addresses those rights and only applies to California residents.

A. Notice of Collection.

We have collected the following categories of personal information (as described in the CCPA) in the past 12 months.

For further details on the personal information we collect and the sources from which we obtain personal information, please review the “The Information We Collect” section above.

We collect and use this personal information for the business and commercial purposes set out in the “How We Process and Use This Information” section above. We disclose this personal information to the categories of persons set out in the “When and With Whom We Share This Information” section above. Please visit those sections for further details.

We do not sell your personal information as that term is traditionally understood. However, some of our disclosures of personal information may be considered a “sale” or “share” as those terms are defined under the CCPA. A “sale” is broadly defined under the CCPA to include a disclosure for something of value, and a “share” is broadly defined under the CCPA to include a disclosure for cross-context behavioral advertising. We collect, sell, or share the following categories of personal information for commercial purposes: identifiers, characteristics, commercial or transactions information, internet activity, non-precise geolocation data, and inferences drawn. The categories of third parties to whom we sell or share your personal information include, where applicable, vendors and other parties involved in cross-context behavioral advertising. For details about your rights regarding sales and shares, please see the “Right to Opt-Out of Sales and Sharing” section below.

We do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of minors under 16 years old who are California residents.

B. Right to Know, Correct, and Delete.

You have the right to know certain details about our data practices. In particular, you may request the following from us:

In addition, you have the right to correct or delete the personal information we have collected from you. These rights are subject to certain exceptions and also apply to sensitive personal information.

To exercise any of these rights, please email us at legal@matthiasott.com.

If you have an account with us, we may require you to use the account to submit the request. In the request, please specify which right you are seeking to exercise and the scope of the request. We will confirm receipt of your request within 10 business days and respond to your request within 45 days. We may require specific information from you to help us verify your identity and process your request. If we are unable to verify your identity, we may deny your request.

C. Right to Opt-Out of Sales and Sharing.

We do not “sell” or “share” your personal information as those terms are defined by the CCPA.

D.Authorized Agent.

You can designate an authorized agent to submit requests on your behalf. Requests must be submitted through the methods listed above. Except for opt-out requests, we will require written proof of the agent’s permission to do so and may verify your identity directly.

E. Right to Non-Discrimination.

You have the right not to receive discriminatory treatment by us for the exercise of any your rights.

F. Minors.

If you are a California resident under 18 years old and registered to use the Service, you can ask us to remove any content or information you have posted on the Service. To make a request, email us at legal@matthiasott.com with “California Under 18 Content Removal Request” in the subject line, and tell us what you want removed. We will make reasonable good faith efforts to remove the post from prospective public view, although we cannot ensure the complete or comprehensive removal of the content and may retain the content as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

G. Shine the Light.

Customers who are residents of California may request (i) a list of the categories of personal information (as that term is defined by Shine the Light) disclosed by us to third parties during the immediately preceding calendar year for those third parties’ own direct marketing purposes and (ii) a list of the categories of third parties to whom we disclosed such information. To exercise a request, please write us at the email or postal address set out in “Contact Us” below and specify that you are making a “California Shine the Light Request.” We may require additional information from you to allow us to verify your identity and are only required to respond to requests once during any calendar year.

14. Notice of Privacy Rights to Virginia Residents

Virginia provides additional rights to Virginia residents through the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (“VCDPA”). This section addresses those rights and applies only to Virginia residents.

You have the following rights under the VCDPA:

To exercise any of these rights, please email us at legal@matthiasott.com and specify which right you are seeking to exercise. We will respond to your request within 45 days. If you have an account with us, we may require you to use the account to submit the request. We may require specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and process your request.

If we refuse to take action on a request, you may appeal our decision within a reasonable period time by contacting us at legal@matthiasott.com and specifying you wish to appeal. Within 60 days of our receipt of your appeal, we will inform you in writing of any action taken or not taken in response to the appeal, including a written explanation of the reasons for the decisions. If the appeal is denied, you may submit a complaint to the Virginia Attorney General at https://www.oag.state.va.us/consumercomplaintform.

15. Do Other Regions Have Specific Privacy Rights?

In Short: You may have additional rights based on the country you reside in.

Australia and New Zealand

We collect and process your personal information under the obligations and conditions set by Australia's Privacy Act 1988 and New Zealand's Privacy Act 2020 (Privacy Act).

This privacy notice satisfies the notice requirements defined in both Privacy Acts, in particular: what personal information we collect from you, from which sources, for which purposes, and other recipients of your personal information.

If you do not wish to provide the personal information necessary to fulfill their applicable purpose, it may affect our ability to provide our services, in particular:

At any time, you have the right to request access to or correction of your personal information. You can make such a request by contacting us by using the contact details provided in the section "Accessing and Updating Your Information"

If you believe we are unlawfully processing your personal information, you have the right to submit a complaint about a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner and a breach of New Zealand's Privacy Principles to the Office of New Zealand Privacy Commissioner.

Republic of South Africa

At any time, you have the right to request access to or correction of your personal information. You can make such a request by contacting us by using the contact details provided in the section "Accessing and Updating Your Information"

If you are unsatisfied with the manner in which we address any complaint with regard to our processing of personal information, you can contact the office of the regulator, the details of which are:

The Information Regulator (South Africa)

General enquiries: enquiries@inforegulator.org.za

Complaints (complete POPIA/PAIA form 5): PAIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za & POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za

16. Third-Party Sites

In Short: We are not responsible for the safety of any information that you share with third parties that we may link to or who advertise on our Services, but are not affiliated with, our Services.

The Platform may link to third party websites, social media platforms, or other online services, and such links are provided for your convenience only. Please note that when you interact with other parties, including when you leave our Service, those parties may independently collect information about you and solicit information from you. The information collected and stored by those parties remains subject to their own policies and practices, including what information they share with us, your rights and choices on their services and devices, and whether they store information in Germany, the United States, or elsewhere. We encourage you to familiarize yourself with and consult their privacy policies and terms of use. We have no control over such third parties, and if you decide to access any of the third party links from the Website, you do so subject to the terms and conditions of use and privacy policies for such third parties.

17. Adobe Fonts

For the design of our Platform, we might use Adobe Fonts web fonts service based on Art. 6(1) lit. f GDPR. Adobe Fonts is a service that provides you with access to a library of fonts for use in desktop applications and websites. The purpose and, at the same time, our legitimate interest in using Adobe Fonts is to be able to use certain web fonts to improve the usability and readability of the Platform. Adobe Fonts explicitly states not to track visitors on websites that use their fonts. In providing the Adobe Fonts service, Adobe does also not set or use cookies on websites in order to serve fonts. Still, the following information may be collected by Adobe to provide the Adobe Fonts service:

This data does not include any information about the users who are visiting a site serving Adobe Fonts web fonts. You can find the privacy policy for Adobe Fonts here: https://www.adobe.com/privacy/policies/adobe-fonts.html

18. Complaints

We want your feedback. If you have suggestions on how we can improve our Platform and Services or complaints you would like us to address, please contact us at the address set out in Section 20 (Contact Us).

19. Changes to This Privacy Policy

From time to time, we may change this Privacy Policy for our business purposes and to comply with changes in applicable law. In the event of any substantive or material changes, we will communicate these changes to you by posting the updated Privacy Policy on the Platform and/or notifying you of the change via the Platform, email, or other methods. To the extent permitted by applicable law, your continued use of the Platform following such notice constitutes your agreement to follow and be bound by the updated Privacy Policy.

20. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, the Platform, or your dealings with this Platform, please contact us. You may contact us, for any reason, using the following contact information:

legal@matthiasott.com