Privacy policy

Controller

Caroline Rathke
White Timber Cottage
Weimarer Straße 39
35083 Wetter (Hessen), Germany
Email: caroline@whitetimbercottage.de

Overview in plain language

• This website sets no cookies and does not track you. There are no analytics, no advertising and no embedded content from third-party providers.
• Fonts, images and scripts are stored on the same server as the website. When you visit, no data is transferred to other providers.
• When you write to me through a form, join the waitlist or sign up for Letters from the Cottage, I receive your details by email. None of it is stored on the web server.
• Your browser stores only the fact that you have read the notice about this website and, if you expressly ask for it, the draft of your memory quilt inquiry.

Hosting

This website is hosted by STRATO GmbH, Otto-Ostrowski-Straße 7, 10249 Berlin, Germany. There is a data processing agreement with the host pursuant to Art. 28 GDPR (the EU General Data Protection Regulation, DSGVO in German).

Server log files

Each time a page is requested, the web server automatically stores technical information that your browser transmits: IP address, date and time, the address requested, the amount of data transferred, the page you visited before, browser and operating system.

The purpose is the secure and stable operation of the website, for example to detect attacks. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR. I do not analyze this data and do not combine it with other data. The host deletes it according to its own retention periods.

Contact form and inquiries

The website has four forms for inquiries, in German and in English. In each of them, the only required information is your name or how you would like to be addressed, a way for me to reply to you (email or phone) and, on the contact form, your message. Everything else is optional.

• Short message (home page): name, email, phone, message.
• Contact form: name, email, phone, topic, message, best time to reach you. If you arrive through a link such as “Ask about this quilt,” the reference is included as well, for example the title of the quilt. You can see it above the form and remove it.
• Memory quilt inquiry: name, email, phone, how you would like us to talk, whose fabrics they are, roughly which pieces you have, what should stay untouched, whether there is an occasion, message.
• Quilt services inquiry: name, email, phone, width and length of the quilt, the services you choose (preparing the layers, quilting, binding), batting, whether you bring or send the quilt, wishes for colors, thread or the edge, preferred date, message.

Your details are transmitted to the server in encrypted form and sent from there to me as an email. They are not stored on the web server. I use them only to answer your inquiry and, where applicable, to prepare an order. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (an inquiry before a possible contract), otherwise Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (my interest in answering inquiries).

When you inquire about a memory quilt, you may tell me about someone who is no longer with us, or about your grief. Please write only as much as you want to. I do not need any information about your own health.

I delete the emails once your inquiry has been dealt with and no retention obligation applies. If your inquiry leads to an order, I keep the necessary records for as long as commercial and tax law requires, usually six or ten years.

Waitlist and Letters from the Cottage

There is a waitlist for classes, sewing circles, videos, new patterns and small things made of fabric. For this, I need your email address, your first name if you like, and the topics you are interested in. Nothing is preselected.

Letters from the Cottage are emails from me about new patterns, templates, classes and events. As a thank-you for signing up, you receive my printable hexagon templates. Signing up is the condition for getting the templates, and the form says exactly that. After you confirm, you can download the PDF, and I send you a welcome email with the download link (valid for 30 days) and a link to unsubscribe. The download link contains no personal data, only an expiry time and a signature.

After you sign up, you receive an email with a confirmation link. The link contains a cryptographically signed key with your address, your topics and the time. Only when you click it are you on the list. This way, nobody else can sign up using your address. After you confirm, I receive an email with your details, the time of confirmation and a hash of your IP address as proof of your consent. Nothing is stored on the web server. Unconfirmed sign-ups do not reach me.

The legal basis is your consent under Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR. You can withdraw it at any time: through the unsubscribe link in my welcome email, with a short reply to any of my emails or through the contact details above. You may keep the templates after unsubscribing. I use your address only to write to you about your topics, until you unsubscribe. After that, I keep the proof of consent for up to three more years so that I can demonstrate it in the event of a dispute.

I send these emails from my own email account. If I later use a service for bulk emails, I will name it here before your address is transferred to it.

Protection against automated requests

To keep bots from misusing the forms, the server runs invisible checks: whether two fields hidden from humans are empty, how much time passes between opening the form and sending it, whether a single-use form key signed by the server is sent along, where the request comes from and how many links it contains. The server also counts how many messages come from one connection. For this, it stores a hash of the IP address, never the address itself, for no more than 24 hours, in a file that nobody can access from outside. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR.

Browser storage, no cookies

This website sets no cookies. In your browser’s storage (local storage), it creates no more than three entries:

• wtc-hinweis: remembers that you have read the notice “Nothing is tracked here,” so that it does not come back on every visit. Content: the number 1. It stays until you delete it in your browser.
• wtc-sprache: only if you choose a language yourself in the navigation or the menu (Deutsch or English). The website then shows you that language on your next visit, too. Content: “de” or “en.” It stays until you delete it in your browser or switch the language again.
• wtc-entwurf-erinnerung: only if you expressly click “Save draft (on this device only)” in the memory quilt inquiry. Your entries then stay on your device so that you can continue writing later. They are not transmitted to me. The entry is deleted when you send the inquiry or click “Delete saved draft.”

If you have not chosen a language, your browser decides on its own when a page opens whether you see the German or the English version: if your device’s time zone is set to Germany, Austria, Switzerland or Liechtenstein, or your browser is set to German, the page stays German; otherwise it switches to the English version. Nothing is stored and nothing is sent to a server.

These entries are needed for features that you explicitly choose to use. The legal basis is § 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG (Telekommunikation-Digitale-Dienste-Datenschutz-Gesetz, the German Telecommunications Digital Services Data Protection Act). You can reopen the notice at any time through “Cookie settings” in the footer of every page or the hexagon button at the bottom left.

Fonts

The font Arimo is stored on this website’s server. When a page loads, no connection is made to third-party font services.

Links to Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest and maps

The phone in the social media section of the home page shows Instagram, YouTube and Facebook as a snapshot with locally stored images and texts. Switching between the three channels loads nothing and transmits nothing to the providers. Only when you click a post, a video, “Follow,” “Subscribe” or another link to Instagram, YouTube, Facebook or Pinterest, such as the icons at the bottom of every page, does the respective provider’s page open. On a smartphone, this may open the app. From then on, the provider’s privacy policy applies. The same applies to the “Get directions” link, which opens Google Maps in a new tab. Sales platforms for patterns and classes that I link to later will be added here as soon as they exist.

No analytics, no tracking

I use no analytics or statistics tools, no advertising networks and no social media plugins.

Encryption

This website is delivered over an encrypted connection (TLS). You can recognize it by the padlock and by “https” in the address bar.

Your rights

You have the right of access (Art. 15 GDPR), rectification (Art. 16), erasure (Art. 17), restriction of processing (Art. 18) and data portability (Art. 20), and the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests (Art. 21). You can withdraw any consent at any time with effect for the future (Art. 7(3)). To do so, just write to me.

Complaint to a supervisory authority

You can lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority. The authority responsible for me is: Der Hessische Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit (the Hessian Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information), Wilhelmstraße 7, 65185 Wiesbaden, Germany.

No profiling

There is no automated decision-making and no profiling under Art. 22 GDPR.

Do you have to provide data?

You are not obliged to give me any data. Without a name and an email address or phone number, though, I cannot reply to you, and without an email address I cannot put you on the waitlist or send you the templates.

Changes

If the technology of this website changes, I will update this policy. The version with the date shown above applies.