Privacy Policy

Version from December 3, 2020

This policy describes how we handle your data when you use “ROUTES Services,” listed below:

  • visit our website at ROUTES-mag.com
  • buy from our shop
  • subscribe to our newsletters
  • submit an event for publication on our site
  • leave a comment on our site
  • write an article for us

What data we collect and how we handle it, depends on the service you use. i.e. if you are buying from our shop we need an address to ship to, an information we would not collect from newsletter subscribers.

1. What data that can personally identify you do we collect?

We collect, and use data, depending on various use cases listed below. There we also describe how we obtain this information.

1.1. Information Collected Through ROUTES Services.

1.1.1 Information That You Give Us Voluntarily

1.1.1.1 For Registration:

When you register as a user on our website to submit an event or article, we ask for

  • your name
  • your email
1.1.1.2 For User-Generated Content:

We give you the ability to post content that other users can read (e.g., events, comments or articles). Anyone can read, collect and use any personal information that is part of your submitted content.

We may or may not publish any of your content. The law may require us to take down, remove or edit your personal information.

1.1.1.3 For Billing:

To process payments or donations, we collect and use your payment information.

This can include your name, your address, your telephone number, your email address, your credit or debit card information and any other relevant information.

1.1.1.4 For Communications:

When you email us or use one of the contact forms, we use the information supplied by you to answer.

1.1.1.5 During Your Shopping Process

While you visit our shop, we’ll track:

  • Products you’ve viewed: we’ll use this to, for example, show you products you’ve recently viewed
  • Location, IP address and browser type: we’ll use this for purposes like estimating taxes and shipping
  • Shipping address: we’ll ask you to enter this so we can, for instance, estimate shipping before you place an order, and send you the order!

We’ll also use cookies to keep track of cart contents while you’re browsing our site.

When you purchase from us, we’ll ask you to provide information including your name, billing address, shipping address, email address, phone number, credit card/payment details and optional account information like username and password. We’ll use this information for purposes, such as, to:

  • Send you information about your account and order
  • Respond to your requests, including refunds and complaints
  • Process payments and prevent fraud
  • Set up your account for our store
  • Comply with any legal obligations we have, such as calculating taxes
  • Improve our store offerings
  • Send you marketing messages, if you choose to receive them

If you create an account, we will store your name, address, email and phone number, which will be used to populate the checkout for future orders.

1.1.2 Automatically Collected Information

1.1.2.1 With Tracking Technologies in Your Browser:

These technologies include cookies, web beacons, tags and scripts, and more.
We track and store data about how you visit and use ROUTES Services, particularly through our website.

The information we log include:

  • Your IP address
  • Your location
  • Your operating system
  • Your browser
  • Your browser language
  • The URLs of any pages you visit on our site
  • Device identifiers
  • Advertising identifiers
  • Other usage information.

We combine this data with other information we collect about you.

Please read our Cookie Policy to learn more about tracking methods on ROUTES Services, and how to manage them.

If your browser doesn’t accept our cookies, you can’t access certain parts of our websites (e.g., your account on ROUTES-mag.com). As the “Do Not Track” browser-based standard signal is not yet widely accepted, we currently don’t respond to those signals.

1.1.3 Information Collected From Other Sources.

1.1.3.1 Social Media Platforms and Other Third-Party Services:

(Social media platforms include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram. Third-party services include Google, Amazon, Mailchimp, PayPal.)
When you interact with our pages, accounts or posts on social media platforms, receive information from you. This includes aggregated data on our followers (e.g., age, gender and location), engagement data (e.g., “likes,” comments, shares, re-posts and clicks), awareness data (e.g., number of impressions and reach) and individual users’ public profiles.

Visitor comments may also be checked through an automated spam detection service like Akismet. You can read their privacy policy here: https://akismet.com/privacy/

Media Uploads:

If you upload images to the website (e.g. in comments or when you submit an article or event), you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF data) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

2. What Do We Do With Your Data?

2.1 We provide the ROUTES Services.

2.1.1 We use your information to help you use and navigate ROUTES Services, like:

  • Making a ROUTES Service available to you
  • Giving you access to your account
  • Providing customer service
  • Responding to your inquiries, suggestions, requests or complaints
  • Processing your payments and transactions
  • Sending service-related messages (e.g., when your submitted event goes live)
  • Allowing you to make comments, submit events or articles.

2.1.2 We Allow You to Share User-Generated Content.

Any information you disclose in your content becomes public — this includes your chosen screen name, associated photo and links.

2.1.3 We Improve Services, and Do Analysis.

2.1.3.1 We analyze data on our users’ subscription, purchase and usage behaviors to make business and marketing decisions.

This data includes characteristics about our readers, which we sometimes share in aggregate with advertisers.

We use Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager as one of our analytics providers. If you want to learn how Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager uses data and how to opt out of Google Analytics go here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en

2.1.3.2 We Perform Administrative Tasks.

We monitor our website for fraud and security to detect and prevent cyberattacks or unauthorized robot activities.

These activities can involve outside companies, agents or contractors (“service providers”) with whom we share your personal information for these purposes.

2.1.3.3 We Allow for Personalized Advertising on ROUTES Services.

We collect data and work with third parties to show you personalized ads. This data comes from ad tracking technologies (e.g., cookies), the information you provide (e.g., your email address), data collected as you use ROUTES Services (e.g., your use of our website), data from advertisers or advertising vendors (e.g., location data) and anything inferred from any of this information.

We use Google to serve ads on ROUTES-mag.com. Google uses cookies or unique device identifiers, in combination with their own data, to show you ads based on your visits of ROUTES-mag.com and other websites. If you want to opt out of the use of the Google cookie by visiting the related Google privacy policy.

3. Who do we share the data with?

3.1. With Service Providers:

We work with service providers (see above) to perform certain tasks:

  • Payment processing
  • Order fulfillment
  • Maintenance of technology and related infrastructure
  • Providing customer service
  • Serving and targeting ads
  • Ad performance measurement
  • Product and mailing shipments
  • Email distribution
  • List processing and analytics
  • Managing and analyzing research

When performing these tasks, service providers often have access to your personal information.

We sometimes allow them to use aggregated or pseudonymized information for other purposes.

3.1.1 Google AdSense

We use Google AdSense on our website to integrate advertisements. This is a service provided by Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Irland (hereinafter: Google).

Through certification according to the EU-US Privacy Shield https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAI&status=Active Google guarantees that it will follow the EU’s data protection regulations when processing data in the United States.

Google AdSense stores cookies and web beacons on your device via your browser. This enables Google to analyze how you use our website. In addition to your IP address and the advertising formats displayed, the information thus collected will be transmitted to Google in the USA and stored there. Google may also share this information with third parties. Google states that it will not connect your IP address to other data.

The legal basis is Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f) GDPR. Our legitimate interest lies in the analysis, optimization, and economic operation of our site.

If you do not agree to this processing, you have the option of preventing the installation of cookies by making the appropriate settings in your browser. Further details can be found in the section about cookies above.

In addition, Google offers an opt-out add-on at https://policies.google.com/privacy and https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated

in particular on options for preventing the use of data.

3.1.2 Mailchimp

To send our newsletter, we use Mailchimp. This service allows us to track opens and clicks on our emails. We use this information to improve the content of our newsletters.

We use MailChimp, a service of The Rocket Science Group, LLC, 512 Means Street, Suite 404, Atlanta, GA 30318, USA, hereinafter referred to as “The Rocket Science Group”.

Through certification according to the EU-US Privacy Shield https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000TO6hAAG&status=Active the Rocket Science Group guarantees that it will follow the EU’s data protection regulations when processing data in the United States. In addition, the Rocket Science Group offers further information about its data protection practices at

Mailchimp’s Privacy Policy

If you register for our free newsletter, the data requested from you for this purpose, i.e. your email address and, optionally, your name and address, will be processed by The Rocket Science Group. In addition, your IP address and the date and time of your registration will be saved. During the registration process, your consent to receive this newsletter will be obtained together with a concrete description of the type of content it will offer and reference made to this privacy policy.

The newsletter then sent out by The Rocket Science Group will also contain a tracking pixel called a web beacon. This pixel helps us evaluate whether and when you have read our newsletter and whether you have clicked any links contained therein. In addition to further technical data, such as data about your computer hardware and your IP address, the data processed will be stored so that we can optimize our newsletter and respond to the wishes of our readers. The data will therefore increase the quality and attractiveness of our newsletter.

The legal basis for sending the newsletter and the analysis is Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. a) GDPR.

You may revoke your prior consent to receive this newsletter under Art. 7 Para. 3 GDPR with future effect. All you have to do is inform us that you are revoking your consent or click on the unsubscribe link contained in each newsletter.

3.1.3 Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics on our website. This is a web analytics service provided by Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Irland (hereinafter: Google).

Through certification according to the EU-US Privacy Shield https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAI&status=Active Google guarantees that it will follow the EU’s data protection regulations when processing data in the United States.

The Google Analytics service is used to analyze how our website is used. The legal basis is Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f) GDPR. Our legitimate interest lies in the analysis, optimization, and economic operation of our site.

Usage and user-related information, such as IP address, place, time, or frequency of your visits to our website will be transmitted to a Google server in the United States and stored there. However, we use Google Analytics with the so-called anonymization function, whereby Google truncates the IP address within the EU or the EEA before it is transmitted to the US.

The data collected in this way is in turn used by Google to provide us with an evaluation of visits to our website and what visitors do once there. This data can also be used to provide other services related to the use of our website and of the internet in general.

Google states that it will not connect your IP address to other data. In addition, Google provides further information with regard to its data protection practices at

https://www.google.com/intl/de/policies/privacy/partners,

including options you can exercise to prevent such use of your data.

In addition, Google offers an opt-out add-on at

https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en

in addition with further information. This add-on can be installed on the most popular browsers and offers you further control over the data that Google collects when you visit our website. The add-on informs Google Analytics’ JavaScript (ga.js) that no information about the website visit should be transmitted to Google Analytics. However, this does not prevent information from being transmitted to us or to other web analytics services we may use as detailed herein.

3.1.4 Google-Maps

Our website uses Google Maps to display our location and to provide directions. This is a service provided by Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Irland (hereinafter: Google).

Through certification according to the EU-US Privacy Shield

https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAI&status=Active

Google guarantees that it will follow the EU’s data protection regulations when processing data in the United States.

To enable the display of certain fonts on our website, a connection to the Google server in the USA is established whenever our website is accessed.

If you access the Google Maps components integrated into our website, Google will store a cookie on your device via your browser. Your user settings and data are processed to display our location and create a route description. We cannot prevent Google from using servers in the USA.

The legal basis is Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f) GDPR. Our legitimate interest lies in optimizing the functionality of our website.

By connecting to Google in this way, Google can determine from which website your request has been sent and to which IP address the directions are transmitted.

If you do not agree to this processing, you have the option of preventing the installation of cookies by making the appropriate settings in your browser. Further details can be found in the section about cookies above.

In addition, the use of Google Maps and the information obtained via Google Maps is governed by the Google Terms of Use https://policies.google.com/terms?gl=DE&hl=en and the Terms and Conditions for Google Maps https://www.google.com/intl/de_de/help/terms_maps.html.

Google also offers further information at

https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated

https://policies.google.com/privacy

3.1.5 Google Fonts

Our website uses Google Fonts to display external fonts. This is a service provided by Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Irland (hereinafter: Google).

Through certification according to the EU-US Privacy Shield

https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAI&status=Active

Google guarantees that it will follow the EU’s data protection regulations when processing data in the United States.

To enable the display of certain fonts on our website, a connection to the Google server in the USA is established whenever our website is accessed.

The legal basis is Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f) GDPR. Our legitimate interest lies in the optimization and economic operation of our site.

When you access our site, a connection to Google is established from which Google can identify the site from which your request has been sent and to which IP address the fonts are being transmitted for display.

Google offers detailed information at

https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated

https://policies.google.com/privacy

in particular on options for preventing the use of data.

3.1.6 FontAwesome

In order to be able to display fonts and visual elements of our website, we use FontAwesome’s external fonts.  FontAwesome is a service of

Fonticons Inc., 6 Porter Road, Apartment 3R, Cambridge, MA 02140, USA, hereinafter referred to as “FontAwesome”.

When you access our website, a connection is established to the FontAwesome server in the USA in order to enable and update the display of fonts and visual elements.

The legal basis is Art.  6 para. 1 lit. f) GDPR. Our legitimate interest lies in the optimisation and economic operation of our website.

By connecting to the FontAwesome server when you access our website, FontAwesome can determine from which website your request was sent and to which IP address the font should be sent.

At

https://fontawesome.com/privacy

FontAwesome offers further information, in particular on the options for preventing data use.

3.1.7 YouTube

We use YouTube on our website. This is a video portal operated by YouTube LLC, 901 Cherry Ave, 94066 San Bruno, CA, USA, hereinafter referred to as “YouTube”.

YouTube is a subsidiary of Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Irland, hereinafter referred to as “Google”.

Through certification according to the EU-US Privacy Shield https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAI&status=Active

Google and its subsidiary YouTube guarantee that they will follow the EU’s data protection regulations when processing data in the United States.

We use YouTube in its advanced privacy mode to show you videos. The legal basis is Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f) GDPR. Our legitimate interest lies in improving the quality of our website. According to YouTube, the advanced privacy mode means that the data specified below will only be transmitted to the YouTube server if you actually start a video.

Without this mode, a connection to the YouTube server in the USA will be established as soon as you access any of our webpages on which a YouTube video is embedded.

This connection is required in order to be able to display the respective video on our website within your browser. YouTube will record and process at a minimum your IP address, the date and time the video was displayed, as well as the website you visited. In addition, a connection to the DoubleClick advertising network of Google is established.

If you are logged in to YouTube when you access our site, YouTube will assign the connection information to your YouTube account. To prevent this, you must either log out of YouTube before visiting our site or make the appropriate settings in your YouTube account.

For the purpose of functionality and analysis of usage behavior, YouTube permanently stores cookies on your device via your browser. If you do not agree to this processing, you have the option of preventing the installation of cookies by making the appropriate settings in your browser. Further details can be found in the section about cookies above.

Further information about the collection and use of data as well as your rights and protection options in Google’s privacy policy found at

https://policies.google.com/privacy

3.1.8 Gravatar

When you leave comments on our website we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. Gravatar is a service provided by Automattic Inc.,60 29th Street #343,San Francisco, CA 94110, United States of America

The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

We use this service to provide an improved user experience.

1.1.9 Akismet

When you leave a comment on our website, this comment is checked for spam through a service called Akismet.This service is provided by Automattic Inc.,60 29th Street #343,San Francisco, CA 94110, United States of America

Akismet collects the commenter’s IP address, user agent, referrer, and Site URL (along with other information directly provided by the commenter such as their name, username, email address, and the comment itself).

The Akismet service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/.

The legal basis for collecting and processing this information is Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f) GDPR. Our legitimate interest lies in the secure operation of our website and in its optimization.

We use this service to protect our website from comment spam.

1.1.10 Paypal

We accept payments through PayPal.com, a service provided by Paypal, 2211 North First Street San Jose, California 95131, USA. When processing payments, some of your data will be passed to PayPal, including information required to process or support the payment, such as the purchase total and billing information.

PayPal’s Privacy Policy

3.1.8 CloudFlare

To secure our website and to optimize loading times, we use the CloudFlare CDN (content delivery network). This is a service of Cloudflare Inc., 101 Townsend Street, San Francisco, California 94107, USA, hereinafter referred to as “CloudFlare”.

Through certification according to the EU-US Privacy Shield (https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000GnZKAA0&status=Active) CloudFlare guarantees that it will follow the EU’s data protection regulations when processing data in the United States.

The legal basis for collecting and processing this information is Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f) GDPR. Our legitimate interest lies in the secure operation of our website and in its optimization.

If you access our website, your queries are forwarded to CloudFlare servers. Statistical access data about your visit to our website is collected and CloudFlare stores a cookie on your terminal device via your browser. Access data includes

– your IP address;

– the page(s) on our site that you access;

– type and version of internet browser you are using;

– your operating system;

– the website from which you came prior to visiting our website (referrer URL);

– your length of stay on our site; and

– the frequency with which our pages are accessed.

The data is used by CloudFlare for statistical evaluations of the accesses as well as for the security and optimization of the offer.

If you do not agree to this processing, you have the option of preventing the installation of cookies by making the appropriate settings in your browser. Further details can be found in the section about cookies above.

CloudFlare offers further information about its data collection and processing as well your rights and your options for protecting your privacy at this link:

https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/.

jsdelivr.net-CDN

We use the service jsdeliver.com, a content delivery network (“CDN”), on our website to optimise the retrieval speed, the design and presentation of the content of our website on different devices.  This is an open source service provided by Prospectone Sp.z.o.o., ul. Krolweska 65A, 30-081, Cracow, Poland.

In order to be able to deliver the content of our website quickly, the service uses so-called JavaScript libraries.  Corresponding files are loaded from a third-party server that records your IP address.  We have no influence on whether your IP address is processed by third parties for statistical purposes.

At https://www.jsdelivr.com/privacy-policy-jsdelivr-net Prospectone Sp.z.o.o. offers further data protection information.

The legal basis is Art.  6 para. 1 lit. f) GDPR. Our legitimate interest lies in speeding up loading times and protecting our website, as well as in analysing and optimising our website.

To completely prevent jsdeliver.net from executing the JavaScript code, you can install a so-called JavaScript blocker, such as noscript.net or ghostery.com. If you were to prevent or restrict the execution of the Java Script code, this can mean that for technical reasons not all the content and functions of our website may be available.

Amazon Associates

Our website participates in the Amazon Associates program. This is a service provided by Amazon.com Inc.. Advertisements from Amazon.com are placed on our website via the Amazon Associates program. If you click on one of these advertisements, you will be redirected to the corresponding offer on the Amazon website. If you subsequently decide to purchase the advertised product there, we will receive a commission from Amazon.

Amazon uses cookies to allow this service to work. With the help of these cookies, Amazon can verify that you were forwarded from our website to its website.

Amazon offers further information about data protection at this link: Amazon’s Privacy Policy

The legal basis for collecting and processing this information is Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f) GDPR. Our legitimate interest lies in ensuring that our commissions are processed and paid by Amazon.

If you do not agree to this processing, you have the option of preventing the installation of cookies by making the appropriate settings in your browser. Further details can be found in our cookie policy.

3.2.With Other Third Parties:

In some situations we may also share your information with other third parties.

3.2.1 Payment Processing

One of these cases is when we process payments you make through ROUTES Services with external services.

We collect your information and share it with the third-party service for processing, or
the third-party service collects your information for processing.

3.2.2 Legal Obligations

If the law requires us to keep or share information, we will do so. Also, if we believe that keeping or sharing personal information is necessary for reasons as:

  • Compliance with legal processes or the law
  • To protect or defend our rights and property
  • Protect against misuse or unauthorized use of ROUTES Services
  • Protect the safety or property of our users or the general public (e.g., fake news)
  • Cooperate with government authorities

4. Your Rights Over Your Data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

4.1 How Do I Opt Out of Email?

We offer an email newsletter. You can unsubscribe anytime by following the “unsubscribe” instructions near the bottom of the email.
You can opt out any time by adjusting your device settings, or uninstalling our app.

4.2 How Do You Access, Change, Delete or Update The Personal Information We Collected?

If you’d like to exercise any of the above rights, please contact us via this form. We need to ensure you are the person whose data you want to access, change, delete or update.

You have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection authority if you are a European resident. Here is a list of E.U. data protection authorities.

4.2.1 California Residents

If you are a California resident and want to act on your privacy right granted you by the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), contact us by email or write to us to the address near the bottom of this page.

5. Sensitive Personal Information

We do not ask you for, or collect sensitive, personal information like your social security number or criminal records.

6. Personal Information of Minors

ROUTES Services do not target minors. Our Term & Conditions state explicitly, that children are not allowed to use our services.

7. How Long Do We keep Your Personal Data

In general, we keep your data as long as needed, or required by law. If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

8. How Do We Protect Your Data

We do our best to keep your Personal Data safe. We use safe protocols for communication and transferring data (such as HTTPS). We use anonymising and pseudonymising where suitable. We monitor our systems for possible vulnerabilities and attacks.

Even though we try our best we can not guarantee the security of information. However, we promise to notify suitable authorities of data breaches. We will also notify you if there is a threat to your rights or interests. We will do everything we reasonably can to prevent security breaches and to assist authorities should any breaches occur.

If you have an account with us, note that it is your obligation to keep your username and password secret.

9. Do We Transfer Information Internationally?

ROUTES Media Inc. is located in the United States. Our website is hosted on a server in Germany. The service providers we use are located in various countries.

10. Who On Our Team Has Access To Your Data

Members of our team have access to the information you provide us. For example, both Administrators and Shop Managers can access:

  • Order information like what was purchased, when it was purchased and where it should be sent, and
  • Customer information like your name, email address, and billing and shipping information.

Our team members have access to this information to help fulfill orders, process refunds and support you.

11. Third-Party Links

ROUTES Services contain links to third-party websites, resources, vendors and advertisers. We do not control and are not responsible for third-party content or privacy practices. This Privacy Policy does not cover third-party sites.

12. Updates and Changes To this Privacy Policy

We do update our Privacy Policy from time to time (e.g. when we add new services or features). Changes take effect immediately on publication. You can see the date of the latest version on top of this page.

How Can You Contact Us?

How to contact us in writing:

ROUTES Media, Inc.
C/O Karekin Arzoomanian
50 E. 42ND St, Room 1306
New York, New York 10017

By email: ronn@ROUTES-mag.com

Via our contact form

This privacy policy was created with the help of Model Data Protection Statement for Anwaltskanzlei Weiß & Partner

ROUTES