1. Foundations6 lessons
  2. Inside the Model5 lessons
  3. How Learning Works5 lessons

Privacy Policy

Data controller

The data controller within the meaning of the GDPR is Silvio Lindstedt und Maik Gräfendorf, GbR. For address and contact details, see the Legal Notice.

Principle

This website itself is static: it has no backend and no user accounts. The community board at community.ki-einfach-verstehen.de is a separate service of the project with its own privacy policy (see below). Web analytics (Matomo, see below) runs cookie-free on an own server. Some settings and your reading progress are stored exclusively in your browser — more on that under "Local storage". The only embedded third-party service is advertising via Google AdSense (see below); personalised ads and the cookies they need are only used if you agree in the consent dialog.

Web analytics (Matomo)

This website uses the self-hosted web analytics software Matomo (endpoint: matomo.silvio-und-maik.de) to produce aggregated, statistical evaluations of how the site is used. The analysis is data-economical and runs entirely first-party on an own server. On each page access, the following technical characteristics are recorded: an anonymised IP address (truncated to 2 bytes before storage), browser type and version, the operating system reported by the browser, the device type (desktop, tablet or smartphone), the screen resolution, the configured browser language, the country of origin and region (geometrically derived from the IP address), the referrer (the page from which this website was accessed), and the subpages visited with time spent and time of visit. In addition, anonymous event counters are recorded for individual, voluntary interactions — for example your feedback on whether a lesson was helpful ("Was this lesson helpful?" at the end of every lesson). These counters, too, are aggregated and cannot be linked to a person. The percentage shown at the top of some lessons ("X% found this helpful") is fetched server-side from these aggregated counters when the website is built (via a dedicated, read-only Matomo account with no write access) and shipped as plain text — your browser never opens its own connection to Matomo for this.

No cookies are set and no information is stored on or read from your device; because tracking is cookieless and IP-anonymised, no consent — and therefore no cookie banner — is required under § 25 TDDDG. There is no profiling, no cross-device tracking, and no sharing with third parties. The data is used exclusively for aggregated statistics and cannot be linked to individuals. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in needs-driven development of this website). You may object to this processing at any time (Art. 21 GDPR) — tick the opt-out option in the field below.

Advertising (Google AdSense)

This website is partly funded by ads from Google AdSense, a service of Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland). Ads appear only in a few places labelled "Advertisement", outside the running text. When an ad loads, your browser connects to Google servers and transmits your IP address and technical characteristics of your browser.

Before the first ad, a consent dialog (a Google-certified consent management platform following the IAB TCF standard) asks whether Google and its advertising partners may set cookies and show personalised ads. The legal basis is your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR, § 25(1) TDDDG); you can withdraw it at any time via the "Privacy settings" link at the bottom of the page. If you decline, only non-personalised ads without advertising cookies are shown. Google processes some data in the USA; the transfer relies on the adequacy decision for the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, which Google has joined. See Google's advertising policy and policies.google.com/privacy.

Hosting (GitHub Pages)

This website is hosted via GitHub Pages, a service of GitHub Inc. (88 Colin P. Kelly Jr. St., San Francisco, CA 94107, USA), a subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation. When you visit this website, GitHub automatically records the following data: IP address, browser type and version, referrer URL, and time of access.

This is technically necessary for operating the website. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest). GitHub processes this data according to the GitHub Privacy Statement. To safeguard the data transfer to the US, Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) under Art. 46(2)(c) GDPR are in place.

Local storage

This website stores a few settings exclusively in your browser (localStorage): your preferred text size, which lessons you have already read (for the progress indicator), and whether you have already given feedback on a lesson (so you aren't asked again), and which AI assistant you picked for "Explain it more simply". This data never leaves your device, is never transmitted to any server, and cannot be linked to a person. You can delete it at any time through your browser settings.

External links

This website contains links to external services, notably to the open-source GitHub repository of this website. Clicking these links takes you away from this website. The respective provider is responsible for data processing on the linked pages. The star count shown in the footer and at the end of every lesson is fetched server-side when the website is built (GitHub Actions), not from your browser when you visit — no data about you is sent to GitHub in the process.

"Explain it more simply" (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity)

Next to every paragraph of a lesson, and when you select text, you can have the passage explained more simply by an external AI assistant. Only when you click one of the options does the chosen service (ChatGPT by OpenAI, Claude by Anthropic, or Perplexity) open in a new tab. The pre-written question, containing the excerpt, the title and the address of the lesson, is part of the address that opens; for very long excerpts it is copied to your clipboard instead and you paste it yourself. Only the public text of this website is passed on, nothing about you. The respective provider is responsible for everything that happens on its site afterwards. Via Matomo, this website only records that the feature was used (option, provider, section), not the excerpt.

Community board (community.ki-einfach-verstehen.de)

At the end of every lesson you find the button "Ask a question about this lesson" and, below it, the section "Questions from the community". The community board is a separate service of this project at community.ki-einfach-verstehen.de, operated by the data controller named above on servers of netcup GmbH (Daimlerstraße 25, 76185 Karlsruhe, Germany). As soon as you scroll to the end of a lesson, your browser loads the list of current questions about that lesson from this server. In doing so, your IP address, browser type and version, and the lesson you are reading are transmitted to the community board's server; no cookies are set and nothing is stored on your device. The purpose is to show you the matching questions right inside the lesson; the legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in a knowledge base where questions and answers live where they arise). If the request fails, the lesson remains fully usable. The button itself only connects when you click it; via Matomo, this website only records that it was used (lesson), not your question.

Everything that happens on the community board itself — user accounts, posts, how long IP addresses are kept — is governed by its own community board privacy policy.

Your rights

You have the right to access, rectification, erasure, and restriction of processing of your personal data, as well as the right to data portability and to object (Art. 15–21 GDPR). Insofar as the web analytics (Matomo) processes personal data, you may object to it (see the web analytics section above). For questions about processing by GitHub (hosting), please contact GitHub Support directly. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority (Art. 77 GDPR).