Online privacy policy

Table of contents

1. We are responsible for your data

The protection and security of your personal data is of utmost importance to us. To allow you to feel safe with us in terms of data protection, we will process your personal data in strict compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the German Federal Data Protection Law (BDSG).

Personal data is data from which you can be identified or are identifiable. We will only process your personal data if we are allowed to do so by law, or you have given us your prior consent. We, that is

Sovendus GmbH, Hermann-Veit-Str. 6, 76135 Karlsruhe, Germany

and our service providers, who will process your data on our behalf for the purposes specified below (hereinafter: Sovendus, ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘ourselves’). We provide vouchers and special offers to adult end customers for our product suppliers and advertising partners (Sovendus cooperation partners) from all branches of trade. Our service providers include, among others, software suppliers, email service providers and data processing service centres. Our service providers are not allowed to process your data for other purposes or on their own behalf.

You may contact us at the postal address mentioned above or by email at info[at]sovendus.co.uk. It is important to us that you can find out at any time from the following information which personal data is collected during your visit to our website and when using our services and offers, and how we process it.

2. How secure is your data?

We have implemented technical and organisational security measures to protect your personal data against manipulation, loss, destruction or access by unauthorised persons, and to ensure the protection of your rights and compliance with the applicable data protection regulations of the EU and the Federal Republic of Germany (Art. 32 GDPR).

The implemented measures taken are intended to guarantee the confidentiality and integrity of your data and to ensure the ongoing availability and resilience of our systems and services when processing your data over the long term. These measures are also intended to ensure the ability to restore the availability and access to data in a timely manner in the event of a physical or technical incident.
Our security measures also include encryption of your data. When your data is transferred to us, it is encrypted using Transport Layer Security (HTTPS). All of the information you provide online is sent via encrypted transmission. This means that this information cannot be viewed by unauthorised third parties at any time.

Our data processing and security measures undergo continuous improvement according to the state of the art. Our employees are of course bound in writing to confidentiality and to comply with the data protection requirements of the GDPR.

3. Our data protection officer

If you have questions regarding data protection or data security, you may contact our data protection officer by email at data-protection[at]sovendus.co.uk or by post at Sovendus GmbH, Hermann-Veit-Str. 6, D-76135 Karlsruhe, Germany.

4. What are mandatory data or mandatory fields?

If certain data fields are designated or marked as “mandatory data” or “mandatory fields” during collection, the provision of this data is either required by law or contract, or we need this data for the conclusion of the contract, the requested service or the indicated purpose. Of course, you are free to provide the data, even if it is mandatory, at your discretion. Failure to provide such information may mean that the contract cannot be fulfilled by us or that the requested service cannot be provided or the indicated purpose cannot be achieved.

5. What is your data processed for?

a. Queries

We will process your data to reply to your queries (Art. 6(1) (b) GDPR). The address and telecommunications data marked as mandatory is necessary to process and answer your querie. The voluntary communication of further data makes it easier for us to deal with your request and enables us to provide more detailed information. As a rule, we will store the information from your querie for a period of three months from our initial reply, in case there are further queries, unless a longer retention period is requiered for documentation purposes (Art. 6 (1) (c), Art. 5 (2) GDPR).

b. Pseudonymized customer analyses

We process your data from requests for voucher and special offers, email newsletters and the related transactions with Sovendus cooperation partners for pseudonymous analyses (see also c. and d.). 

On the one hand, we would like to be able to present you offers tailored to your potential interests (such as local vouchers or special offers) at Sovendus an our cooperation partners on the internet. At the same time, we would like to consider possible restrictions of our cooperation partners in these pseudonymous analyses, which, for example, differentiate between new and existing customers in offers or, for example, impose time restrictions on orders, so that you are only offered vouchers that you can redeem and special offers, such as free trial offers for daily newspapers, magazines or product samples that can also be delivered to you.

Only pseudonymised data are used for this purpose (Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR). Our legitimate interest lies in the successful marketing of voucher and benefit offers from Sovendus cooperation partners.

You can object to this processing at any time by pressing the button that follows to display “Disabled”. If you want to reactivate the pseudonymous analysis, press the button to display “Activated”.

Enabled (blue and switch on the right) / disabled (grey and switch on the left)

c. Our voucher offers

Some of our advertising partners will present our voucher offers after your online purchase on their website. In order to select a currently interesting voucher offer for you, our advertising partners will transmit your pseudonymised hash value of your e-mail address and your IP-address in encrypted form to us (Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR). The pseudonymised hash value of your e-mail address is used to consider a possibly existing objection to receive offers from us (Art. 21 (3), Art. 6 (1) (c) GDPR). The IP-address will be exclusively used for data security purposes and as a rule the same will be anonymised after seven days.

Furthermore, our advertising partners will transmit order number, order value with currency, session ID, coupon code, and time stamp in pseudonymised form to us (Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR). If you are interested in one of our voucher offers, while there is no objection existing to receive such offers, and if you click on the voucher banner, our advertising partners will transmit your form of address, your name and your e mail address in encrypted form to us (Art. 6 (1) (b) and (f) GDPR).

When the required data have been processed to prepare your voucher, an e-mail with your voucher code will be sent to the e-mail address given by you (Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR).

d. Our special offers

Some of our advertising partners present our special offers on their websites after you have made your online purchase on our site. To enable us to offer up-to-the-minute, regional offers that should be of interest to you, our advertising partners send us some pseudonymised and encrypted information, which includes the salutation, year of birth, country, postcode, hash value of the e-mail address and your IP address (Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR). The pseudonymised hash value of the e-mail address will also be used by us for any possible rejection of advertising by you (Art. 21 (3), Art. 6 (1) (c) GDPR). We only use the IP address for the purpose of data security, and it is usually anonymised after seven days (Art. 6 (1) (b) and (f) GDPR).

When you click a special offer, your name, address details and e-mail address will also be forwarded to us by our advertising partner in encrypted form, so that we can prepare the personalised request for the special offer for the respective product provider (Art. 6 (1) (b) and (f) GDPR).

When you select one of our special offers, we first of all process your information that is required to order the special offer. Following this your details will also be sent to the product provider whose special offer you selected (Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR). After this, we will only use your data in pseudonymised form for the purpose of analyses (Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR (see b. above).

Once the details have been transmitted, the respective product provider is then responsible for any further processing of your data.

e. Email newsletter from Sovendus

If you select by your express consent (which you may withdraw at any time) your personal newsletter of one of our advertising partners, the respective advertising partner will directly send you by e-mail the selected newsletter (Art. 7 (2) No. 3 UWG, Art. 6(1) (a) GDPR).

To this end we will transmit your data and your consent declaration to the respective advertising partner (Art. 6 (1) (a) and (f) GDPR). If you wish to withdraw your consent, you may at any time contact the advertising partner.

f. Forwarding to affiliate networks (third-party providers)

So-called “affiliate networks” (third-party providers) are used for the voucher offers of some of our advertising partners. Affiliate networks can track whether we contribute to a purchase or website visit by the advertising partner with our voucher offer (hereinafter “tracking”). This serves the purpose of billing between the advertising partner and us, as well as the analysis of the shopping behaviour by the advertising partner. An affiliate network is used if you have previously agreed to this, and are redirected from our website via a link to the affiliate network. The affiliate network can recognise from the link that you are arriving from our website, and to which advertising partner you want to go. The affiliate network forwards you directly to the advertising partner where you can redeem your voucher.

When forwarding to an affiliate network, the following data will be processed by the affiliate network: IP address, browser information, data on the origin of Sovendus, data on subsequent visits and purchases from the advertising partner. If applicable, the affiliate network stores information in your terminal device for tracking purposes (e.g. cookies).

We will only redirect you to an affiliate network if you have previously agreed to the redirection. The legal basis for the forwarding is then Art. 6 (1) Sentence 1 Lit. a) GDPR. As we do not store your consent, it will automatically expire after you have clicked on the link or closed the website.

The following affiliate networks are used (please note the additional data processing by the affiliate network depending on the affiliate network):

  • retailAds GmbH & Co. KG, Kaiserstraße 23, 90403 Nürnberg, Deutschland (you can find their privacy policy here).
  • Performance Horizon Group Limited (“Partnerize”), Level 8 West One, Forth Banks, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 3PA, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (you can see their privacy policy here). In addition to the above data processing, Partnerize also discloses data to its affiliates and transfers data abroad.
  • Daisycon B.V., Alnovum Building, P.J. Oudweg 5, 1314 CH Almere, The Netherlands (find their privacy policy here).
  • Impact Germany GmbH (“Impact”), Friedrichstraße 68, 10117 Berlin, Germany (you can find their privacy policy here). In addition to the above data processing operations, Impact also discloses data to its affiliates and transfers data abroad.
  • Rakuten Europe S.à rl (“Rakuten”), 2 rue du Fossé, L-1536 Luxembourg (you can find their privacy policy here). In addition to the above data processing, Rakuten also discloses data to Rakuten Group companies and transfers data abroad.

 

g. Email newsletter from our advertising partners

If you select by your express consent (which you may withdraw at any time) your personal newsletter of one of our advertising partners, the respective advertising partner will directly send you by e-mail the selected newsletter (§ 7 section 2 n° 3 Act Against Unfair Competition, UWG, Art. 6 (1) (a) GDPR).

To this end we will transmit your data and your consent declaration to the respective advertising partner (Art. 6 (1) (a), (f) GDPR). If you wish to withdraw your consent, you may at any time contact the advertising partner.

h. Email newsletter from product suppliers

If you select by your express consent (which you may withdraw at any time) or on the basis of a contract your personal newsletter of a product supplier, the respective product supplier will directly send you by e-mail the selected newsletter (Art. 7 (2) No. 3 UWG, Art. 6 (1) (a) and (b) GDPR).

To this end we will transmit your data and your consent declaration or your contract declaration to the respective product supplier (Art. 7 (2) No. 3 UWG, Art. 6 (1) (a), (b) and (f) GDPR). If you wish to withdraw your consent, you may at any time contact the product supplier.

i. Documentation of consent

When we obtain your consent to the sending of e-mail newsletters, your IP address will be collected and stored for documentation purposes (Art. 7 (1), Art. 6 (1) (c) GDPR).

j. Duration of storage

We store the data we collected from you for advertising purposes until we receive your revocation of consent or your objection to the processing of your data for advertising purposes.

k. Change of purpose

If we decide to change the purposes of the processing over time, we will update this privacy policy before doing so.

l. Online applications

If you apply for a job with Sovendus, we will process your data to handle and evaluate your application (Art. 26 (1) GDPR). We need your address and telecommunication data marked as mandatory data to correctly assign your application and to contact you. Your application data marked as mandatory data allow us to assess the chances of success of your application.

If you are not chosen for or if you refuse the offered job, we will store your data for another three months for documentation purposes and then delete them, unless you have given us your consent to use your data for further application procedures (Art. 6 (1) (a) GDPR).

m. Use of SalesViewer® technology:
On the website https://online.sovendus.com, data is collected and stored for marketing, market research and optimisation purposes using the SalesViewer® technology of SalesViewer® GmbH on the basis of the legitimate interests of the website operator (Art. 6 [1] Lit.f GDPR).

For this purpose, a javascript-based code is used to collect company-related data and the corresponding use. The data collected with this technology is encrypted via a non-reversible one-way function (so-called “hashing”). The data is immediately subject to pseudonymisation and is not used to personally identify the visitor to this website.

The data stored within the framework of Salesviewer will be deleted as soon as it is no longer required for its intended purpose, and the deletion does not conflict with any statutory retention obligations.

You can object to the collection and storage of data at any time with effect for the future by clicking on this link https://www.salesviewer.com/opt-out to prevent the collection of data by SalesViewer® within this website in the future. This places an opt-out cookie for this website on your device. If you delete your cookies in this browser, you must click this link again.

n. Data processing when displaying the Trustpilot seal.

Sovendus will share your IP address with Trustpilot A/S Ltd Pilestræde 58, 5 1112 Kopenhagen Dänemark after you have given your consent via our Cookie Consent Manager in order to show you Sovendus’ current rating on Trustpilot. If you would like to know more about how Trustpilot processes your data, you can view Trustpilot A/S’s privacy policy here.

o. Use of your data for web analysis and tracking purposes (Google Analytics)

In order to optimise this website and our services, we use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Ireland Limited, a company incorporated and operated under Irish law (registration number: 368047) with its registered office at Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland (“Google“). Google Analytics uses “cookies”, which are text files placed on your computer, to help the website analyse how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. However, if IP anonymisation is activated on this website, your IP address will first be shortened by Google within member states of the European Union or in other signatory states to the Agreement on the European Economic Area. Only in exceptional cases the full IP address will be transmitted to a Google server in the USA and shortened there.

Google will use this information on our behalf to analyse your use of the website, to compile reports on website activity for us and to provide us with other services relating to website activity and internet usage. The IP address transmitted by your browser as part of Google Analytics will not be merged with other Google data.

The legal basis for the processing of your personal data in this context is your consent in accordance to Art. 6 para. 1 sentence 1 lit. a) GDPR.

Your personal data will be deleted as soon as it is no longer required for the aforementioned purposes or you withdraw your consent.

You can prevent the storage of cookies by setting your browser software accordingly; however, we would like to point out that in this case you may not be able to use all functions of this website to their full extent.

You can also prevent Google from collecting the data generated by the cookie and relating to your use of the website (including your IP address) and from processing this data by Google by downloading and installing the browser plug-in available at the following link tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en. As an alternative to the browser add-on or within browsers on mobile devices, please click on this link to prevent Google Analytics from collecting data within this website in the future (the opt-out only works in this browser and only for this domain). An opt-out cookie will be stored on your device. If you delete your cookies in this browser, you must click this link again. You can find more information on this at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en or at https://policies.google.com/privacy#products, https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=de (general information on Google Analytics and data protection).

We would like to point out that Google Analytics is used on this website in the form of server-side tracking to ensure anonymised collection of IP addresses (so-called IP masking).

In order to fully comply with the statutory data protection requirements, we have concluded a data processing agreement with Google. It cannot be ruled out that data processing may take place outside the scope of application of EU law. Any transfer of personal data to the USA takes place on the basis of the EU Commission’s adequacy decision of 10 July 2023 regarding the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.

p. Google Tag Manager (GTM)

We use GTM, a tool from Google Inc., on our website. With GTM, we can manage our website tags via an interface. The GTM itself does not set any cookies and does not process any personal data, but works more like an asynchronous JavaScript tag injector. GTM also respects any tracking tags originally implemented by GTM and deactivated by you.

6. Right of objection and revocation at any time

You have the right to object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, at any time to the processing of your personal data, provided that the legal requirements are met (Art. 21 (1) GDPR).

If you want to object to the processing of your data for advertising purposes or if you wish to withdraw your consent (Art. 21 (2) GDPR), you may at any time send a short message to our Data Protection Officer by e-mail to data-protection[at]sovendus.co.uk or by mail to Sovendus GmbH, Data Protection, Hermann-Veit-Straße 6, D-76135 Karlsruhe. Your data will then no longer be processed for the advertising purposes covered by your objection or your withdrawal of consent.

This does not affect the lawfulness of the processing before objection or withdrawal of consent.

If you object to the processing of your personal data for advertising purposes or if you withdraw your consent, we are obliged, according to data protection law pursuant to Art. 21 (3) GDPR, to enter the required data (name, address, e-mail address) into our internal advertising black list and to store (block) these data permanently, in order that we can compare them with future advertising files (Art. 6 (1) (c) and (f) GDPR). In this way we can ensure the ongoing observance of your objection or of your withdrawal of consent. We will use your blocked data exclusively for this purpose.

7. Use of technologies

a. Information required for technical purposes to send or prepare our service

We use these technologies required for technical purposes to enable and ensure the functionality of our websites and to implement the revocation of a technology, e.g. cookies and/or the revocation of your consent to the use of the technology (Article 6.1 b, f GDPR).

The following technologies are in use:

Designation Period of validity Information / Function
SOV_OPTOUT 100 years Required to store an end customer's objection to pseudonymous customer analysis in the long term.
Information text on the Sovendus web pages
cookieconsent_notice_accepted 1 year Necessary to store an end customer's objection to pseudonymous customer analysis in the long term.
Prescreen-Integration
bePreScreen Session Required to integrate and display open Sovendus job postings from the applicant management system on Sovendus career websites.
lufursdcevgps 7 days
PHPSESSID 12 hours
Test Session
Sovendus voucher process
Exactag up till 20 years Required for the settlement of the distributed vouchers in the cooperation between Sovendus and Tchibo GmbH, Hamburg. Information on a voucher request at Sovendus is transmitted to the Tchibo service provider Exactag, Düsseldorf via tracking pixels and links and cookies are set for this purpose. If you do not want this, you can use the following link to set an Exactag opt-out cookie for voucher campaigns of this advertising partner at Sovendus via the following link: https://www.sovendus.com/tchibo_exactag_optout
sov-nps 1 year Required to prevent multiple use or misuse of the Net Promoter Score. Allows only a single rating by an end customer as long as the cookie is valid and present.

b. What are cookies and what do we use them for?

“Cookies” are small files that are downloaded to your computer’s hard drive by your web browser or other programs. These are stored locally on the hard disk of your computer and kept ready for later retrieval.

We use cookies

to enable and ensure necessary technical functionality (Art. 6 (1) (b), (f) GDPR), to respect user rejection of cookies and/or the revocation of their consent on the use of such cookies (Art. 6 (1) (c) GDPR).
Session cookies are only used for the particular session. These cookies are deleted after the end of the session, i.e. after leaving our website or when the browser window is closed. Other cookies remain on your end device for a longer period of time and enable us or third parties to recognize your browser on your next visit (persistent cookies).

c. Deletion of cookies/revocation of your consent

You can set your web browser to notify you when cookies are set or to reject all or specific cookies in general (e.g. only third-party cookies). If you disable cookies using your browser, however, you will no longer be able to use various functions on our website.

The following links will inform you about this possibility for the most commonly used browsers:

Explorer: support.Microsoft.com/de-de/help/17442/windows-internet-explorer-delete-manage-cookies

Firefox: support.Mozilla.org/de/kb/cookies-informationen-websites-auf-ihrem-computer

Google Chrome: support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py

Safari: support.apple.com/de-de/guide/safari/sfri11471/mac

Opera: help.opera.com/Linux/12.10/de/cookies.html

Please note that if you delete all cookies, those cookies used to comply with the revocation options will also be deleted.

d. Measuring reach with Matomo

We use the web analysis software Matomo in order to measure the reach of our website (creating anonymous visit and performance statistics). Measuring the reach helps us to measure performance, find navigation problems, optimise the technical performance, evaluate the capacity of the required server as well as to analyse the viewed contents. It is indispensable for the functionality of our website (para. 5, section 3 of the ePrivacy guideline 2002/58).
In order to distinguish users when measuring reach, Matomo uses a digital fingerprint consisting of browser information (type, version, plugins and language), operation system as well as your IP address. This digital fingerprint is only valid for 24 hours and will be anonymised thereafter.

The IP address will be anonymised immediately after it has been collected (Para 6, section 1, GDPR). Our lawful purpose is to carry out anonymised reach measurements under the principle of data minimisation (Para 5, Section 1 C, GDPR).
Thereafter, the processed data will be used to create anonymous visit and performance statistics about the browser types used, the browser versions, operating systems, countries of origins, date and time of the server requests, number of visits, stay on the website as well as links used.

This information will be used for no longer than 25 months for the purposes of measuring reach and will be deleted thereafter.

The data generated by Matomo relating to the use of this website will be processed exclusively on our servers and the servers of your data processors (Para. 28 GDPR) and not transferred to third parties.

You may object to the reach measurement with Matomo at any time with effect for the future by clicking on this button.

Enabled (blue and switch on the right) / disabled (grey and switch on the left)

8. Logging

Every time a user accesses this website or websites in our advertising network, data about this process are stored and processed temporarily in a log file (Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR). These data include:

  • category or type of file requested,
  • data and time of request,
  • amount of data transferred,
  • notification whether the request was successful,
  • the access method/function preferred by the requesting terminal,
  • a description of the type of web browser used,
  • referrer (website from which you have reached our website)
  • IP address.


The temporary storing of these so-called server log data is required to perform the services for technical reasons and, thereafter, to ensure system security. The data are anonymised normally after seven days by shortening of the IP address.

9. How can you exercise your data protection rights?

If you have questions concerning the processing of your personal data by us, we will of course be pleased to provide information (Art. 15 GDPR) about the data relating to you. Moreover, provided that the legal requirements of the GDPR are met, you have the right to correction (Art. 16 GDPR), erasure (Art. 17 GDPR), restriction of processing (Art. 18 GDPR), data portability (Art. 20 GDPR) and the right to object to processing (Art. 21 GDPR).

Please contact in all these cases our Data Protection Officer (see above 3.) at the communication addresses given there. If there is reasonable doubt about the identity of the natural person asserting the aforementioned rights, we will additionally request information necessary to confirm the identity.

Finally, you have the right to lodge a complaint with a competent data protection supervisory authority (Art. 77 GDPR, Section 19 BDSG).

10. Changes

From time to time it will be necessary to change the contents of this privacy policy. We therefore reserve the right to change it at any time. We will also publish the amended version of the data protection information here. If you visit us again, you should therefore read the privacy policy again.

Booth: November 2020