Privacy and data protection

Data protection is a matter of trust, and your trust is important to us. To ensure you feel secure when visiting our websites, we strictly adhere to legal regulations when processing your personal data and would like to inform you here about our data collection and use. The following privacy policy explains which data is collected from you on our websites, how we process and use this data, and who you can contact with any questions.
1. Responsible body and rights of the data subject
The responsible entity for the collection, processing, and use of your personal data within the meaning of the German Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG) is Walk Like A Pro GmbH (hereinafter: WalkLikeAPro). WalkLikeAPro, as the responsible entity, can be contacted using the contact details provided below:
- By mail to: Walk Like A Pro GmbH, Anglikerstrasse 15, 5610 Wohlen
- Contact: 0800 180 372
- Email: info@walklikeapro.ch
You can obtain information about your data stored with us free of charge at any time, as well as assert your right to rectification, blocking, or erasure of your data. Please contact us using the contact details provided above. If you wish to object to the collection, processing, or use of your data by Walk Like A Pro GmbH in accordance with these data protection provisions, either in general or for specific measures, you can also send your objection by email or letter to the contact details provided above.
2. Collection, processing and use of personal data
Personal data is information relating to the factual or personal circumstances of an identified or identifiable natural person. This includes, for example, your name, telephone number, address, and all registration data that you provide to us when registering and creating your customer account.
2.1 Customer account
We set up a customer account for every customer who registers with us using the "register now" function. This account provides password-protected direct access to their stored data. Here, you can view information about your completed, open, and recently shipped orders, as well as manage your personal data and newsletter subscription.
2.1.1 Setting up a customer account and completing an order
The following data must be provided when registering for a customer account and completing an order (mandatory information):
- Your first name
- Your last name
- Your place of residence (For delivery of the package)
- Your email address
- Your password
For your order, we need your correct name, address, and payment information. We need your email address to confirm receipt and shipment of your order, and generally to communicate with you. We also use your email address for identification (as your username) when you log in to your customer account.
2.2 Collection, processing and use of your personal data
We collect, store, and process your data for the entire processing of your purchase, including any subsequent warranty claims, for our customer service (e.g., customer complaints), technical administration, our own marketing purposes (more information on this can be found in section 4), and for the prevention of crime and fraud. Your personal data will only be disclosed to third parties to the extent permitted by law, including for the purpose of contract fulfillment or billing, for marketing purposes, or if you have given your prior consent. For example, as part of the order processing, the service providers we use (such as carriers, logistics companies, and banks) receive the data necessary for order and payment processing. The data disclosed in this way may only be used by our service providers to fulfill their tasks.
3. Credit check
We conduct a credit check before finalizing the purchase agreement. This is done to offer you a selection of different payment methods. The credit check also serves to protect us against payment defaults. Furthermore, the credit check serves your and our security, as it helps prevent fraud and other criminal activity.
As part of the credit check, we review all available data to determine which payment methods can be offered for an order. This includes checking all previous orders in your customer account. We also verify whether the delivery address differs from the billing address, whether it is a new delivery address, or whether the order is to be delivered to a parcel locker.
In addition to the data we already have, we also require data from external service providers. For this purpose, we transmit the personal data required for a credit check (first and last name, your address, and, if applicable, your date of birth) to the following credit service providers:
Swiss Association Creditreform Gen
Teufener Strasse 36
CH-9000 St. Gallen
These credit rating agencies used the aforementioned data we transmitted to assess your creditworthiness for each order using mathematical and statistical methods (scoring). Furthermore, the credit rating agencies used this data for other companies (e.g., other online retailers) for address verification and identity checks, as well as for related scoring applications. Your address data is also factored into the calculation of the probability score. This may, under certain circumstances, allow for the identification of significant negative credit history.
If you do not agree with the payment method(s) offered to you, you can inform us using the contact details provided in section 1. We will then review the decision taking your point of view into account.
4. Use of your data for advertising purposes
In addition to processing your data to handle your purchase at WalkLikeAPro, we also use your data for the following purposes: to continuously improve your shopping experience and make it more customer-friendly and personalized; to communicate with you about your orders, as well as about specific products or marketing campaigns; and to recommend products or services that may interest you.
We use existing information for this purpose, such as email delivery and read receipts, information about the device you are using, your internet connection, operating system and platform, the date and time of your visit to the website, or the products you viewed, as well as information we receive from you (including automatically transmitted or generated information). We also use your order history.
You can object to the use of your personal data for advertising purposes at any time, either entirely or for specific measures, without incurring any costs other than the standard transmission fees. A written notification to the contact details listed in section 1 (e.g., email, letter) is sufficient.
4.1 Product recommendations via email
If you have made a purchase on WalkLikeAPro, you will regularly receive product recommendations from us via email. You will receive these recommendations regardless of whether you have subscribed to our newsletter. We want to provide you with information about products from our range that might be of interest to you based on your recent purchases.
If you no longer wish to receive product recommendations or any promotional messages from us, you can object at any time without incurring any costs other than standard transmission fees. A written notification to the contact details listed in section 1 (e.g., email, letter) is sufficient. Of course, you will also find an unsubscribe link in every email.
4.2 Newsletter
We use the email address you provided to send the newsletter and require your confirmation that you, as the owner of the email address, agree to receive it.
Should you no longer wish to receive our newsletter, you can unsubscribe at any time without incurring any costs other than standard transmission fees. A written notification to the contact details listed in section 1 (e.g., email, letter) is sufficient. Of course, you will also find an unsubscribe link in every newsletter.
4.3 Banner advertising
We also use the data collected during your visit to display banner ads to you. These are advertisements that we place on third-party websites. This is usually done using cookies or pixels. Our goal is to make the advertising more useful and interesting for you, so you will primarily see products in the banner ads that you have either already viewed on our site or products that are similar to the products you have viewed (so-called retargeting). We only work with pseudonymous data for banner advertising; clear text information about you (e.g., your name or email address) is not stored in the cookies.
More information about cookies, pixels and retargeting can be found in sections 4 and 7 of this policy.
5. Retargeting and data collection by third parties for banner advertising
Our websites use so-called retargeting technologies. We use these technologies to make our online offerings more interesting for you. This technology allows us to target internet users who have already shown interest in our shop and our products with advertising on our partners' websites. We are convinced that displaying personalized, interest-based advertising is generally more relevant to internet users than advertising without such personal relevance. The display of these advertisements on our partners' websites is based on cookie technology and an analysis of previous browsing behavior. This form of advertising is completely pseudonymous.
When you use our website, cookies are used to collect, store, and use your usage data. Furthermore, your data is stored in cookies beyond the end of your browser session and can be accessed again, for example, during your next visits to the website.
For retargeting and banner advertising, we use third-party services that place cookies on our website. These providers are:
Google, Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheater Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA; https://www.google.de/intl/de/policies/technologies/ads/
Facebook Inc., 1601 S. California Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA; https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/
Criteo CIL, 32 Rue Blanche, 75009 Paris, France; http://www.criteo.com/de/privacy/full-privacy-text/
6. Cookies
Accepting cookies is not a requirement for visiting our website. However, please note that our website and services will have limited functionality if you do not allow us to set cookies.
6.1 What are cookies?
Cookies are small files that are stored on your device to save certain settings and data for exchange with our system via your browser. There are two main types of cookies: session cookies, which are deleted as soon as you close your browser, and temporary/persistent cookies, which are stored on your device for a longer period or indefinitely. This storage helps us to tailor our websites and offers to your needs and makes them easier to use, for example, by saving certain information you enter so that you don't have to re-enter it repeatedly.
6.2 Which cookies does WalkLikeAPro use?
Most of the cookies we use are automatically deleted from your hard drive after the end of your browser session (hence the name session cookies). Session cookies are needed, for example, to provide you with the shopping cart function across multiple pages. We also use cookies that remain on your hard drive. On subsequent visits, these cookies allow us to automatically recognize that you have visited our site before and remember your preferred settings and entries. These temporary or permanent cookies (with a lifespan of one month to ten years) are stored on your hard drive and delete themselves automatically after the specified period. These cookies, in particular, help us make our website more user-friendly, effective, and secure. For example, these files allow us to display information on the site that is specifically tailored to your interests. The sole purpose of these cookies is to optimize our website to best meet your needs and make your browsing experience as comfortable as possible.
6.3 What data is stored in the cookies?
The cookies used by WalkLikeAPro only store pseudonymous data. When a cookie is activated, it is assigned an identification number, and your personal data is not linked to this identification number. Your name, IP address, or similar data that would allow the cookie to be directly associated with you are not stored in the cookie. Based on cookie technology, we only receive pseudonymized information, such as which pages of our shop were visited, which products were viewed, etc.
6.4 Are there also cookies from third-party providers (so-called third-party cookies)?
WalkLikeAPro uses several advertising partners to help make its website and online offerings more interesting for you. Therefore, when you visit our website, cookies from these partner companies are also stored on your hard drive. These are temporary/permanent cookies that automatically delete themselves after a specified period. These temporary or permanent cookies (with a lifespan of 14 days to 10 years) are stored on your hard drive and delete themselves automatically after the specified time. The cookies from our partner companies also contain only pseudonymous, and often even anonymous, data. This includes, for example, data about which products you have viewed, whether a purchase was made, which products were searched for, etc. Some of our advertising partners also collect information beyond our website about which pages you have previously visited or which products you were interested in, in order to show you advertising that best matches your interests.
6.5 How can you prevent the storage of cookies?
In your browser settings, you can configure it to only accept cookies if you consent, thus preventing further cookies from being set in the future. If you only want to accept WalkLikeAPro cookies and not those of our service providers and partners, you can select the "Block third-party cookies" setting in your browser.
Typically, the help function in your web browser's menu bar will show you how to reject new cookies and disable those already received.
7. Web Analytics
To continuously improve and optimize our services, we use tracking technologies. For this purpose, we use the services of Google Analytics.
7.1 Google Analytics
This website uses Google (Universal) Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Inc. (www.google.ch). Google (Universal) Analytics uses methods that allow an analysis of your use of the website, such as "cookies," which are text files placed on your computer. The information generated about your use of this website is generally transmitted to and stored on a Google server in the USA. By activating IP anonymization on this website, your IP address will be shortened before transmission within member states of the European Union or in other contracting states of the Agreement on the European Economic Area. Only in exceptional cases will the full IP address be transmitted to a Google server in the USA and shortened there. The anonymized IP address transmitted by your browser as part of Google Analytics will not be merged with other Google data.
You can prevent Google from collecting and processing data generated by the cookie relating to your use of the website (including your IP address) by downloading and installing the browser plugin available at the following link: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=de .
As an alternative to the browser plugin, you can click this link to prevent Google Analytics from collecting data on this website in the future. This will place an opt-out cookie on your device. If you delete your cookies, you will need to click the link again.
8. Log files
Each time you access WalkLikeAPro's website, usage data is transmitted by your internet browser and stored in log files, also known as server log files. The data records stored contain the following information: date and time of access, name of the accessed page, IP address, referrer URL (the URL from which you accessed the website), the amount of data transferred, and product and version information of the browser used.
We analyze these log file records to further improve our services and the WalkLikeAPro shop, making them more user-friendly, identifying and fixing errors more quickly, and managing server capacity. We also use the log file records to defend against attacks on our WalkLikeAPro shop, such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, which aim to block access to our WalkLikeAPro shop by overloading it with requests.
9. Secure data transmission
Your personal data is transmitted securely using encryption. This also applies to your order and customer login. We use the TLS (Transport Layer Security) or SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption protocol.
Furthermore, we protect our websites and other systems against loss, destruction, access, alteration or distribution of your data by unauthorized persons through technical and organizational measures.