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Data protection

BY SWISSCOM DIRECTORIES AG

1. Introduction

In this privacy statement, Swisscom Directories AG (hereinafter "we" or "localsearch") informs you, among other things, about who is responsible for processing your data, what data we collect in connection with visits to our websites and the use of our services, offers and products (hereinafter "services"), for what purposes we process this data and to whom we may pass this data on. We also inform you about the duration of the processing of your data, the legal basis for the processing (if such should be necessary) and what rights you have with regard to the processing of your data. This privacy statement applies to all of your data that we already have or that we will have in the future. Please note that we may adapt the privacy statement from time to time. The current version published on www.localsearch.ch applies.

“Personal data” means all information that relates to a specific or identifiable person. This includes in particular information such as name, address, telephone number, email address, and possibly also IP addresses and device IDs. In this data protection declaration, the general term “data” includes not only personal data but also non-personal and anonymized data. “Processing” or “processing” means any handling of data, regardless of the means and procedures used, in particular the collection, storage, use, processing, disclosure, archiving or deletion of data.

If you provide us with personal data of other people, please ensure that these people are aware of this privacy policy and only provide us with their personal data if you are authorized to do so under applicable data protection law.

2. Persons responsible, contact

Swisscom Directories AG, Förrlibuckstrasse 62, 8005 Zurich, Switzerland is responsible for data processing in accordance with this data protection declaration. For concerns and inquiries in connection with data protection, you can contact us via dataprivacy@localsearch.ch. Our data protection representative is available as an additional point of contact in the EU for you and the supervisory authorities. She can be contacted by post at VGS Datenschutzpartner UG, Am Kaiserkai 69, 20457 Hamburg, Germany or by email at info@datenschutzpartner.eu.

3. Categories of data processed

When using our services and interacting with Localsearch (e.g., when visiting our websites, using one of our mobile apps or other digital services, entering into a contract, registering, logging into your user account, or contacting our staff), we collect certain data. Typically, we collect this data directly from you. In some cases, we may receive data from other people (e.g., if a third party provides a rating or comment about you through one of our services, if your employer provides us with your contact details, or if a company with which you have a contractual relationship forwards your data to us). Additionally, we may obtain data from third parties or public sources.

The personal data we process may include the following:

  • Data provided to us during the registration for one of our services (e.g., name, contact details, gender, marital status, date of birth, job title, photo, family members, employees, language, payment information, login credentials, interests, advertising information, opt-ins and opt-outs, etc.).

  • Data concerning offers and concluded contracts (e.g., contract date, type, content, product, parties, duration, value, adjustments, payment details, contact details, contact persons, billing and correspondence addresses, customer feedback, cancellations, disputes, etc.).

  • Data collected or provided during the use of our services (including any third-party services integrated into our platform) by both registered and non-registered users. This includes IP and MAC addresses or device IDs, cookies, pages accessed by users and search terms entered, entries in dialog boxes, reservations, reviews, timing and duration of visits, clicks, responses to offers from Localsearch and third parties, referring/exit URLs, usage time, browser and device type, operating system and internet service provider, data transferred. This also includes data published through these services (e.g., images, texts, comments, reviews, videos, etc.). We may merge personal data from one of our services with data from another service.

  • Data exchanged during contact with us (e.g., communication via letter, phone, fax, email, text and multimedia messages (SMS/MMS), video messages, instant messaging, voice, responses to communication and offers from Localsearch, preferred communication channels, etc.).

  • Data provided when participating in sweepstakes, surveys, and similar activities.

  • Certain services (e.g., search.ch, local.ch, and localcities.ch) may collect and store location-based data if the geolocation function of the device is enabled.

  • Data provided by other group companies and third parties with whom we have business relationships (e.g., directory data that may include names, addresses, contact details, job titles, etc., address databases, changes to database entries, creditworthiness data, information on internal company contacts, and segmentation criteria, such as household size).

  • Data from public sources (e.g., commercial register entries, other public directories, etc.).

The above data does not always constitute personal data. In general, data collected during the use of our services without registration (e.g., via a user account) cannot be attributed to a specifically identified person. However, in certain cases, this may be possible when combined with other data.

To use our services, you may need to provide certain personal data necessary for establishing and managing the contractual relationship and fulfilling the associated contractual obligations or legal requirements. Without this personal data, we will generally not be able to conclude or fulfill the contract or provide a specific service. It is also necessary to log access to our digital services and collect connection data (such as IP address); this occurs automatically during use and cannot be disabled for individual users. If you do not agree to the collection of such data, you should refrain from using our services.

4. Processing purposes and legal bases

We will process personal data, as far as permitted by applicable law, in particular for the following purposes:

  • Initiation, conclusion, fulfillment and processing of contracts;

  • Offering, further developing and improving our services, developing new services, operating, maintaining, optimizing and ensuring the security of our services and infrastructure;

  • Managing users of our services, identity verification and other authentication;

  • Maintaining, administering and developing our customer relationships, communicating with customers and third parties, customer service and support, promotions, advertising and marketing, creating user profiles, offering tailored services and relevant content;

  • Maintaining and publishing directories (in printed form, on data media and/or on the Internet), maintaining, comparing, querying and updating databases, including central address and contact data directories of us and companies with which we have a contractual relationship;

  • Protection of users, our employees and third parties as well as protection of our data, secrets and assets, security of our systems, buildings and other infrastructure;

  • Quality control, market research, preparation of statistics, reports and management information, management and development of the company, our offering and our activities, acquisition and disposal of business units, companies and parts thereof;

  • Compliance with legal and regulatory obligations and internal rules, law enforcement, civil, administrative and criminal proceedings, complaints, anti-abuse, investigations and responses to requests from authorities.

We may also process personal data for other purposes if a legal obligation requires the processing or if we inform you about it elsewhere or if the processing was obvious from the circumstances at the time the data was collected.

We use the personal data for the above purposes on the basis of the following legal bases, insofar as such is required under the applicable data protection law:

  • performance of the contract;

  • Fulfillment of legal obligations;

  • Consent given to us or to third parties;

  • Legitimate interests of us and third parties, in particular:

    • Offering and providing services;

    • advertising and marketing;

    • Maintaining contact and communicating with users and third parties;

    • Understanding user behavior, preferences and needs, market studies;

    • Further developing and improving our services, developing new services;

    • User management, identity verification, authentication;

    • Protecting users, our employees and third parties, our data, secrets, infrastructure and assets;

    • Maintaining and organizing business operations in a secure, efficient and effective manner, including secure, efficient and effective operation and successful development of digital services and other IT systems, troubleshooting;

    • Sensible corporate management and development, successful sale or purchase of business units, companies or parts of companies and other corporate transactions;

    • Compliance with legal and regulatory obligations and internal rules, law enforcement, civil, administrative and criminal proceedings, complaints, anti-abuse, investigations and responses to requests from authorities.

5. Publication and sharing of data

We may disclose and share information as follows:

Publication of data

Certain of our services provide for the publication of data. Published data can usually be accessed anywhere, even outside Switzerland. For example, the published directory data is publicly available (e.g. on local.ch, search.ch, localcities.ch, anbieter-vergleich.ch, renovero.ch, in print editions of directories, etc.). Data published using corresponding functions of our services (e.g. posts, images, texts, videos, comments, ratings, etc.) can also be accessible to the public. This also applies to the user name used. Published data can also be published by us or third parties on other platforms and in other media (such as print media), possibly in an adapted form. Data published via our services may also be indexed by search engines (such as Google) or distributed by third parties, over which we have no control; such data can therefore continue to be publicly available in every country in the world after it has been deleted by us.

Order data processor

We may commission third parties to provide certain services (e.g. in the area of IT, operation of infrastructure, services and applications, support, administration, printing, shipping, etc.) and to process (e.g. storage) data (so-called "contract data processors"). Contract data processors may have access to personal data and process it on our behalf. We oblige the contract processors to comply with data protection law and to process data only in the same way as we do ourselves. Contract data processors who may receive personal data may be located in any country, in particular in Switzerland, in EU and EEA countries and in the USA.

Contractual partner

We may pass on data to contractual partners (e.g. sales partners, service providers, customers, suppliers, financial companies, etc.). This happens, for example, to fulfill contractual obligations, to offer certain services, to compare, validate and update databases (including central address and contact data directories of us and our contractual partners), for debt collection and marketing purposes, to analyze the use and operation of our services, systems and infrastructure, for payment processing and factoring. Possible recipients may also be buyers or parties interested in acquiring business areas, companies or parts thereof. Contractual partners may receive access to personal data and process it for their own purposes (e.g. to fulfill the contract or to fulfill their own legal obligations). They are themselves obliged to comply with applicable data protection laws. Contractual partners who can receive personal data can be located in any country, in particular in Switzerland, in EU and EEA countries and in the USA.

Disclosures to authorities and other disclosures for legal reasons

In certain situations, we may disclose data to authorities, courts and other third parties (e.g. in connection with official or judicial requests, investigations and clarifications, administrative and criminal investigations, civil and criminal proceedings). We do this in cases where we are requested to do so by an official or judicial authority or are required to do so in our opinion or where we have a good faith belief that access to, use of, retention or disclosure of the data in question is reasonably necessary to enforce applicable terms of use, detect, prevent or combat crimes or security deficiencies or to protect the rights and property of localsearch.

6. Retention period

We store personal data for as long as it is necessary for the purpose for which we collected it. Certain personal data is also subject to legally binding retention periods of ten years or more. We may also store personal data for at least the duration of the applicable limitation periods, which in many cases is five or ten years. Personal data that arises in connection with the use of our services (e.g. protocols, logs, analyses, etc.) and that is not subject to such retention or limitation periods are generally deleted sooner as soon as we are no longer interested in processing it. Data can also be stored for longer in anonymized form. Unless expressly agreed in a contract, we are not obliged to store data for a specific period of time.

7. Cookies, web analysis and tracking tools and other technologies

We use various common technologies to collect, store and analyze data when you use our services. For more information, please see the cookie policy of the respective service.

8. Social media plugins and integration of third-party offers

We integrate plug-ins from social networks (e.g. Facebook, Twitter) into our services. These plug-ins make it easier to share content on these platforms.

When you visit our services that contain such plug-ins, a connection can be automatically established to the server of the respective provider. Certain data (such as the time of visit to the service, browser type, IP address) is recorded and saved by this provider. If you have a user account with one of these providers, they can assign this information to your profile. If you also interact with these plug-ins (e.g. by clicking the "Like" button or by leaving a comment), this information is also transmitted to this provider, saved there and possibly published. When you use a social login service (e.g. Facebook Connect), the provider can send us personal data that they have stored about you, such as your name, email address and profile picture.

We also integrate third-party offers into our services that enable you to interact with customers and other users of localsearch as well as third parties (e.g. making a reservation via a booking service or submitting ratings and comments). For this purpose, the data provided is forwarded to these third parties for processing and execution of the corresponding service or is processed directly by them.

Please note that these third parties’ terms of use and privacy policies apply to the data processing.

9. Rights of data subjects

Every data subject has the right to information about personal data concerning them. They also have the right to request that we correct or delete personal data concerning them, as well as to restrict the processing of personal data and to object to this. If the processing of personal data is based on consent, the data subject can withdraw consent at any time. In addition, in certain cases the data subject has the right to receive the data generated when using online services in a structured, common and machine-readable format that enables further use and transmission.

The exercise of these rights generally requires that the data subject can clearly prove his or her identity.

To exercise your rights please click here .

We reserve the right to restrict the rights of the data subject within the framework of applicable law and, for example, not to provide complete information or not to delete data or to delete it in full. We would also like to draw your attention to the fact that if your personal data is deleted, services may no longer be available or can no longer be used in whole or in part.

If we make an automated decision concerning an individual which produces legal effects concerning the data subject or similarly significantly affects him or her, the data subject can speak to a competent person at our company and request that the decision be reconsidered or, where applicable law so provides, request a human assessment from the outset. In this case, the data subject may no longer be able to use certain automated services. The data subject will be informed separately of such decisions.

Every person concerned has the right to lodge a complaint with the competent data protection authority. In the case of a controller in Switzerland, this is the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner ( www.edoeb.admin.ch ).

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