Privacy Policy

Section 1: Information on the collection of personal data

(1) The following is intended to inform you about the manner in which your personal data is collected when you use our website or when you submit a bid for one of our auctions.  The term “personal data” refers to all data that relate to you personally, e.g. your name, addresses, email address, and user behavior.

(2) The “controller” within the meaning of Article 4 paragraph 7 of the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union (EU-GDPR) is Auktionshaus Plückbaum GmbH, doing business at Hohe Strasse 75 in Bonn-Tannenbusch, Germany (email: info@plueckbaum.de).

(3) Whenever you contact us or whenever you submit a bid via email or via our bidding form, the data you provide in the process (your email address, your name, if applicable, and your telephone number) will be stored by us so that we can answer your questions and/or process your bid.  We will erase the data accruing in this connection once their storage is no longer necessary; if we have to keep the data on file due to statutory archiving obligations, we will duly restrict their further processing.

(4) Please see below for detailed information on how we deal with cases in which we outsource certain of our services to external service providers or in which we intend to use your data for advertisement purposes.  In the process, we will also inform you of the criteria we intend to use for determining how long the data is to be stored.

 Section 2: Your rights

(1) In your relationship with us, you enjoy the following rights when it comes to the personal data concerning you: 

–                 The right to access;

–                 The right to rectification or erasure;

–                 The right to restriction of processing;

–                 The right to object to processing;  

–                 The right to data portability.

(2) Moreover, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority responsible for data protection about how we are processing your personal data.

Section 3:  How your personal data are collected when you visit our website

(1) Whenever you use our website for informational purposes only, i.e. without actively transferring information to us, we will collect only the personal data that your browser transfers to our server.  If you wish to view our website, we will collect the data listed below, since they are technical prerequisites enabling us to display our website to you and to ensure its stability and security (the legal basis for this being Article 6 paragraph 1 sentence 1 letter f) of the EU GDPR):

–                 IP address;

–                 Date and time of the retrieval;

–                 Time-zone difference from Greenwich Mean Time (GMT);

–                 Content of the access request (specific webpage);

–                 Access status/HTTP status code;

–                 Respective volume of data transferred;

–                 Website from which the access request originated;

–                 Browser used;

–                 Operating system used and its interface;  

–                 Language and version of the browser software.

(2) In addition to collecting the aforementioned data, we will also place cookies onto your computer when you use our website.  Cookies are small text files that are stored on your hard drive, allocated to the browser you are using, and which send back certain information to party that placed them on your hard drive (in this case, our website).  Cookies cannot execute any programs of their own or transfer viruses onto your computer. They merely serve to make your online experience more user-friendly and efficient overall.

(3) Use of cookies:

a) This website employs the following types of cookies, the scope and function of which are explained below:  

–                 Transient cookies (see letter b)

–                 Persistent cookies (see letter c).

b) Transient cookies are automatically deleted once you close your browser.  They specifically include “session cookies,” which store a so-called “session ID” that allow the various requests from your browser to be allocated to the shared session.  This allows your computer to be automatically recognized once you re-visit our website in a new session.  The session cookies are erased once you log out or close your browser.  

c) Persistent cookies are automatically erased after a pre-defined period, which may vary from cookie to cookie.  You can delete these cookies at any time using the corresponding function in your browser’s security settings.  

d) You can configure your browser settings to match your personal preferences.  For example, you can block the receipt of third-party cookies or block cookies altogether.  Please be advised, however, that this may mean that you cannot use all of the functions of this website.

e) We use cookies to automatically identify you whenever you return to our website, assuming you have already set up an account with us.  If not, you will have to log in anew each time you visit the website.  

f) The flash cookies used by us will not be recorded by your browser, but rather by your flash plug-in.  We also use HTML5 storage objects that will be placed onto your terminal device.  These objects store the required data no matter which browser you are using and do not have an automatic expiry date.  If you object to flash-cookie processing, you will have to install a special add-on, such as “Better Privacy” for Mozilla Firefox (https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/betterprivacy/) or Adobe’s “Flash-Killer Cookie” for Google Chrome.  You can prevent the use of HTML5 storage objects by setting your browser to “Private Browsing Mode.”  We also recommend that you delete your cookies and browsing history manually on a regular basis.