Privacy Policy

The controller for the processing of personal data on led-professional.com is LUGER RESEARCH e.U. — Institute for Innovation & Technology, Moosmahdstrasse 30, 6850 Dornbirn, Austria. E-Mail: info@lugerresearch.com, phone: +43 5572 394489.

For any question about your data, or to exercise the rights described below, write to us at that address.

We set no cookies for readers and use no Google Analytics, no advertising networks and no social media plugins. We count visits with Umami, a statistics tool that runs on our own server and does not store IP addresses. Details you enter in a form are used for the purpose stated there. Content from other providers — the Spotify player on podcast articles, the YouTube player on video articles and the directory map — is only loaded when you ask for it.

Our servers and service providers are in the EU. The exceptions are the map images in the Global Lighting Directory (United Kingdom) and, if you switch on browser notifications, the push service of your browser (possibly the USA). Both are explained below.

When you open a page, your browser sends us your IP address, the address of the page, the time of the request and technical details such as the browser type. We need this to deliver the page and to protect the site against attacks and abuse. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR; our legitimate interest is a secure, working website.

The site runs on servers of Hetzner Online GmbH, Industriestrasse 25, 91710 Gunzenhausen, Germany, in data centres in Germany; uploaded files and our backups are stored there too. Pages are delivered through the content delivery network of BunnyWay d.o.o. (bunny.net), Dunajska cesta 165, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia, which also filters attacks and abusive traffic. Both process data on our behalf under a data processing agreement (Art. 28 GDPR).

bunny.net deletes its request logs after three days. Our own servers keep no logs of page requests.

We measure how the site is used with Umami, open-source software that we run on our own server in Germany. No data goes to the makers of Umami or to anyone else.

On each page view, and when an advertising banner has been visible for one second or is clicked, a script sends: the address and title of the page, the page you came from, the name of the banner, and your browser, operating system, device type, screen size and language. Your IP address is used only to work out your country, region and city and to form a visit identifier — a one-way hash of the IP address and browser details, combined with a value that changes every month. The IP address itself is not stored.

Umami sets no cookies and stores nothing on your device. It cannot recognise you from one month to the next or across other websites, and we do not combine the statistics with any other data.

We use the statistics to improve the site and to report reach, banner views and banner clicks to our advertisers. Advertisers receive only totals, never information about individual visitors. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR; our legitimate interest is measuring the reach of the site and its advertising, which finances the magazine. We keep the statistics for as long as we need them to compare reach over time and to report to advertisers.

Because Umami keeps nothing that identifies you, we cannot find or delete the records of a particular person (Art. 11 GDPR). You can prevent the counting by blocking JavaScript for this site, or the address /stats/script.js, in your browser.

The site sets no cookies for readers. It keeps three small notes in your browser’s own storage. They contain no personal details and are not sent to us:

When you like an article, that you liked it, so the button stays marked (local storage, until you clear your browser data). Your place in an article list, so that going back returns you to the same spot (session storage, deleted when you close the tab). That an article has already been counted for the “Most read” list in this tab, so one reader is not counted twice (session storage, deleted when you close the tab).

Editors who log in to our content management system receive a login cookie. It is never set for readers.

If you subscribe to a newsletter, your e-mail address goes directly from your browser to Brevo (Brevo SAS, 7 rue de Madrid, 75008 Paris, France), which sends our newsletters on our behalf from servers in the EU under a data processing agreement. You first receive an e-mail asking you to confirm the subscription (double opt-in); you are only subscribed once you confirm. Legal basis: your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR).

You can unsubscribe at any time with the link in every newsletter, or by writing to us. We keep your address for as long as you are subscribed.

To download a white paper you enter your name, e-mail address and company. If you agree, we pass these details to the company that provides the white paper — it is named in the form — which may contact you about the white paper and related products. Legal basis: your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR). We store the exact consent text you agreed to and the time, as proof. Once the details have been passed on, that company is responsible for them under its own privacy policy, which the form links to where it has given us one.

You can withdraw your consent at any time by writing to us. We then delete your details and, if they have already been passed on, inform the company. Withdrawing does not affect the lawfulness of processing before it.

We keep your details until the campaign they belong to has been delivered to the company and closed, or until you withdraw your consent, whichever is earlier.

If you download our media kit, we use your name, e-mail address and company to send it and to follow up on your interest in advertising with us. If you leave your e-mail address in the “Partnership opportunities” form, we use it to contact you about advertising; that form stores it with Brevo (see Newsletter), without a newsletter subscription. Only our own sales team uses these details; they are not passed to advertisers. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (steps you asked for before a possible contract) and Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (our interest in following up on inquiries).

We delete these details when they are no longer needed for this purpose, or earlier if you ask us to.

When you submit a press release or register a company in the Global Lighting Directory, we process the details you enter: your name, e-mail address and (for the directory) phone number, the billing address and VAT number, and the content you submit. We use them to publish the press release or listing, to process the payment, to issue the invoice and to contact you about the order. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (performance of the contract).

The press release and the directory listing are published, including the company details you enter for the listing (such as address, office e-mail and phone, website and social media profiles). Your own contact details as the submitter are not published. To place a listing on the directory map, we look up the coordinates of the company’s city with the Nominatim service of the OpenStreetMap Foundation; only the company’s address is sent.

Payments are handled by Mollie B.V., Keizersgracht 126, 1015 CW Amsterdam, Netherlands. You enter your payment details on Mollie’s pages, not ours; we only receive the payment status. Mollie processes payment data as an independent controller under its own privacy statement.

We keep orders, invoices and accounting records for seven years, as Austrian tax law requires (§ 132 BAO; Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR). A published listing or press release stays online until you ask us to remove it.

If you switch on notifications about new articles, your browser creates a subscription that we store: a delivery address at your browser’s push service, two encryption keys and your browser’s user-agent string. Legal basis: your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR), which you give by clicking the button and allowing notifications in your browser.

Notifications are delivered through the push service run by the maker of your browser — for example Google for Chrome, Mozilla for Firefox, Apple for Safari, Microsoft for Edge — which may be located in the USA. The content of each notification is end-to-end encrypted; the push service cannot read it. Where the provider is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, the transfer is based on the European Commission’s adequacy decision of 10 July 2023.

You can switch notifications off at any time on the site or in your browser settings. We then delete the subscription; we also delete it as soon as the push service reports that it is no longer valid.

The map in the Global Lighting Directory is only loaded when you switch it on. Your browser then loads map images from the OpenStreetMap Foundation, St John’s Innovation Centre, Cowley Road, Cambridge, CB4 0WS, United Kingdom, which receives your IP address for this. The European Commission has decided that the United Kingdom provides an adequate level of data protection. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR; our legitimate interest is showing you the map you asked for.

Podcast articles can play our episodes with the player of Spotify (Spotify AB, Regeringsgatan 19, 111 53 Stockholm, Sweden). The player is only loaded when you press “Play episode”; until then the page loads nothing from Spotify, and the cover image comes from our own server. When you press play, your browser connects to Spotify, which receives your IP address, the fact that the request comes from our website and technical details about your browser, and which may store cookies or similar information on your device. If you are logged in to Spotify in the same browser, Spotify can link the playback to your account. Spotify processes this data as an independent controller under its own privacy policy, also outside the EU, including in the USA.

Legal basis: your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR, § 165(3) TKG 2021), which you give by pressing play after the notice next to the button. You can withdraw it at any time with effect for the future by deleting Spotify’s cookies in your browser and not using the player. The “Open in Spotify” link is a plain link: Spotify receives nothing from us unless you click it.

Video articles can play our videos with the player of YouTube (Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland) in its privacy-enhanced mode (youtube-nocookie.com). The player is only loaded when you press play on the video; until then the page loads nothing from YouTube, and the preview image comes from our own server. When you press play, your browser connects to YouTube and Google, which receive your IP address, the fact that the request comes from our website and technical details about your browser, and which may store cookies or similar information on your device. If you are logged in to a Google account in the same browser, Google can link the playback to your account. Google processes this data as an independent controller under its own privacy policy, also outside the EU, including in the USA.

Legal basis: your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR, § 165(3) TKG 2021), which you give by pressing play after the notice under the video. You can withdraw it at any time with effect for the future by deleting YouTube’s cookies in your browser and not using the player. The “Subscribe on YouTube” button is a plain link: YouTube receives nothing from us unless you click it.

If you e-mail or call us, we use your details to answer you. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR where your message concerns a contract or an order, otherwise Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (our interest in answering inquiries). We delete the correspondence when the matter is closed, unless the law requires us to keep it.

The advertising banners on this site are images we host ourselves; showing a banner sends no data to the advertiser. Only when you click a banner or another external link do you go to the other website, whose privacy policy then applies. The share buttons are plain links: LinkedIn, X and Bluesky receive nothing from us unless you click one.

All connections to the site are encrypted (HTTPS). Our databases are backed up daily to a separate Hetzner storage system in the EU, and backups are deleted again on a rolling basis after a few weeks. We do not sell personal data, and we make no automated decisions about you, including profiling, within the meaning of Art. 22 GDPR.

You have the right to access the data we hold about you (Art. 15 GDPR), to have it corrected (Art. 16) or deleted (Art. 17), to restrict its processing (Art. 18), and to receive it in a portable format (Art. 20). Where we process data on the basis of your consent, you can withdraw it at any time with effect for the future (Art. 7(3)). Write to info@lugerresearch.com.

Right to object (Art. 21 GDPR): where we process your data on the basis of our legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR), you can object at any time on grounds relating to your particular situation. Where we use your data for direct marketing, you can object at any time without giving reasons, and we will then stop.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority — in Austria the Datenschutzbehörde, Barichgasse 40–42, 1030 Vienna, dsb@dsb.gv.at — or with the authority in the EU country where you live or work.

You are not obliged to give us personal data. Forms mark the details they need; without them we cannot provide that particular service. Reading the site requires no personal details from you.