Privacy notice

The following privacy notice shall provide you with a general overview about the collection, processing and use (hereinafter together referred to as "processing") of your personal data. For more information regarding our processing activities.

What kind of personal data do we process?

  1. While using our products: Ad Free Web or Adblock Browser (automatically, except for Issue Reporter)
    • Extension updates, subscription downloads, emergency notifications:
      • Browser version
      • Extension version
      • Operating system
      • Date of last update
      • IP address
      • Log file data on Updates page
      • URL
      • URL of referred webpage, if any, and webpage that opened the given page
      • Blockable items
      • Matching filters
      • Active filter lists
      • Access to browser settings and installed plug-ins
      • Enabled extensions (voluntary)
  2. For all mobile products and Ad Free Web for Safari on macOS
    • Crash reports:
      • UUID and crash traces in order to help a user associate crash data with specific instances of our products
      • Instance IDS
      • Device type
      • application ID
      • App and/or extension version
      • Free space
      • Free ram
      • A timestamp of when a crash happened
    • Event tracking:
      • App and/or extension version
      • Device type
      • Which platforms you are using
      • Location data based on your IP address (country)
      • Anonymous interaction events (like button clicks)
  3. Adblock Browser, based on Chromium, provides Chromium-specific functionality which, however, may send data to Google.
  4. Adblock Browser for iOS (automatically):
    • Error and crash report data:
      • Bundle identifier, bundle version and short bundle version string of Adblock Browser
      • Device type, CPU architecture and version of the operating system
      • Timestamp of crash
      • UUID
      • Plain-text class name and message value of the exception
      • Instruction pointer, method or function names, signal data, pointer registers and information about the loaded binary images
      • String / function name identifying the error
  5. For Ad Free Web on desktop, when uninstalling Ad Free Web
    • Automatically:
      • Browser language
      • Extension name and version
      • Browser type and version
      • Operating system and version
      • Number of notification downloads
      • Information whether the local storage of the extension configuration is corrupted
      • Filter subscriptions enabled / disabled
      • Version parameter of filter lists
    • Voluntary:
      • Reason for uninstallation
  6. While using our websites
    • Automatically:
      • IP address (stored separately)
      • Information about the request, including, but not limited to, domain and path, date and time, request body and query
      • Information about the response to the request, including, but not limited to, response code and bytes
      • Aggregated analytics data
      • Session ID information necessary to test and operate our websites
    • Voluntary:
      • Forum registration data
      • Email address
      • Data you provide in comments
      • Feedback and filter data
      • When applying for a job: Name, email address, your resume and all other data voluntarily uploaded / shared by you
  7. For user support
    • User name (contact via social media) and/or email
    • Device information
    • Version of Ad Free Web and other applicable tech specifications
    • URLs the user is having issues with
    • Ad Free Web issues
    • Address and transaction ID numbers for donation refunds (voluntary)
  8. In connection with social media
    • On our social media pages: Usage profiles
    • Link / button to social media in Ad Free Web: Amount of blocked elements

How do we collect data?

List of techniques and tools we use for data collection.

  1. In our products:
    • Update checks
    • Subscription downloads
    • Sending issue reports
    • Sending crash reports
    • In our mobile products and Ad Free Web for Safari on macOS: via Firebase Analytics
    • Emergency notification checks
    • Referring to an uninstall or donation webpage
    • Data in connection with receiving donations
    • Log files in connection with Updates page
  2. On our websites:
    • Cookies
    • Log files
    • Data, like name and / or email address and / or communication data, sent by you when using our forum or blog, using the “BECOME A PARTNER” button, when sharing manually added filters or when applying for a job
    • For non-EU/EEA users only: Via Google Analytics
  3. For user support:
    • Via email sent by you
    • From user reviews in App Stores
    • From forum posts
    • From Browser Web Store reviews
    • From social platforms like Facebook and Twitter
  4. Data you provide to us via social media
  5. In connection with social media:
    • On our social media pages: Cookies
    • Sharing function in Ad Free Web: Links

How and why do we process your data?

  • In order to inform you about urgent issues in connection with our products.
  • To improve and to evaluate our products by processing and analyzing subscription downloads, extension updates, emergency downloads, uninstallation information, and issue reports you send to us.
  • For technical purposes, such as, but not limited to, preventing security attacks, to improve our website / products, to ensure website / product security.
  • To analyze aggregated website logs, and for non-EU/EEA users analytics data, to improve our website.
  • For communication and assistance purposes in our forum and blog.
  • For discussing and negotiating a partnership with you.
  • For assisting you with any issues you may have with our products.
  • For receiving donations that you send to us and for fraud detection.
  • To promote our products.
  • In connection with our social media pages, social networks use the data for market research and advertising purposes.
  • For evaluating your application for recruitment purposes and offering you jobs.

We process your personal data in compliance with the European General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) (“GDPR”), the applicable EU laws and German national data protection laws.

How long do we keep data?

  1. For a period of 30 days:
    • Issue report data
    • iOS crash and error reporter data
    • Website logs
    • Data related to subscription downloads, extension update checks, emergency notifications
    • Data related to uninstalling the extension
  2. For a period of 90 days:
    • In our mobile products and Ad Free Web for Safari on macOS crash reporting
  3. For a period of two (2) months:
    • event tracking
  4. For a period of 10 years:
    • Donation report data
    • Partner data

Note: “Aggregated usage statistics”, such as analytics data and other data without any connection to a single user, may be retained beyond these periods.

Our values

We collect as little data as possible. As far as anonymous or pseudonymous use is possible we anonymize or pseudonymize your data.

What rights do you have?

  • Receive information about the personal data processed by us and how we process your data as well as to gain access to such data.
  • Rectify inaccurate personal data and restrict details.
  • Receive all your personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format, as well as having such data transmitted to another controller.
  • Request erasure of your data, unless such data needs to be retained for legal purposes.
  • Object to the processing of your data.
  • Withdraw your consent at any time, when you have provided us with your consent to the processing of your personal data.
  • Lodge a complaint with the respective supervisory authority.