1. Controller
Dawid Kostka
Dienstleistungen in der automatischen Datenverarbeitung und Informationstechnik (services in automatic data processing and information technology)
Altmannsdorfer Straße 104/210, 1120 Vienna, Austria
2. Purpose of the website
WienCityGuide.com is an online city guide to Vienna and provides curated information on attractions, restaurants, museums, parks, markets and other places in Vienna. The website also offers a blog with editorial articles about Vienna.
3. Data processed
a) Visiting the website (server log files)
When you visit this website, the hosting provider automatically records server log files. These include: IP address, date and time of access, pages visited, HTTP status code, browser type and operating system. This data is technically necessary to ensure the website runs securely. It is not analyzed on a personal basis – the data is used solely for error analysis and system security.
b) Contacting us
If you contact us by email or phone, the data you provide (e.g., name, email address, content of the message) is stored in order to process your inquiry. It is not passed on to third parties unless there is a legal obligation to do so.
4. Cookies & tracking
Technically necessary cookies for session management are always set; they are required for the website to work.
In addition, we use Google Analytics. The cookies it needs are set only after you have given your express consent. On your first visit, a notice appears with the buttons “Accept all” and “Necessary only”. Until you consent, analytics is disabled via Google Consent Mode. Your choice is stored locally in your browser; you can withdraw it at any time by deleting the site data in your browser. For details, see section 5c.
For general audience measurement, we also use Umami. Umami works without cookies and does not store IP addresses; for details, see section 5f.
5. External services
a) Google Fonts
This website uses fonts from Google Fonts (Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland). When you open a page, your browser loads the required fonts directly from Google's servers. In the process, your IP address is transmitted to Google. For more information, see Google's privacy policy. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in a consistent presentation).
b) Hosting
The website runs on servers of an external hosting provider. The provider processes the data listed in section 3a on the basis of a data processing agreement pursuant to Art. 28 GDPR.
c) Google Analytics 4
This website uses Google Analytics 4, a web analytics service provided by Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland). The service helps us understand which content is in demand and where visitors leave the site. The data collected includes pages visited, time spent on the site, approximate location, device type and traffic source. We also measure individual interactions, such as clicks on a listing's website, on route planning and on phone numbers, as well as submitted searches.
The IP address is processed in truncated form (IP anonymization). A transfer to Google LLC in the USA cannot be ruled out; for such transfers, Google relies on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses and the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework.
The sole legal basis is your consent under Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR in conjunction with § 165(3) TKG 2021 (Austrian Telecommunications Act). Without your consent, no analytics takes place. For more information, see Google's privacy policy and Google Analytics and privacy.
d) OpenStreetMap
On the detail and district pages, we embed maps using the Leaflet software. The map tiles are loaded from servers of the OpenStreetMap Foundation (St John’s Innovation Centre, Cowley Road, Cambridge, CB4 0WS, United Kingdom). When a tile loads, your IP address is transmitted to these servers. No cookies are set in the process.
The map only loads once you scroll down to it. If you view a page without reaching the map area, no connection to OpenStreetMap is made. Technically, this is meant to spare the community-funded map servers; in terms of privacy, it has the side effect that no transfer takes place at all in these cases.
The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in a working map display). The European Commission has issued an adequacy decision for the United Kingdom, so no additional safeguard is required for the transfer. For more information, see the OpenStreetMap Foundation's privacy policy.
e) Ask the Guide (AI answers)
On the “Ask the Guide” page, you can ask a question about your visit to Vienna. The answer is generated by a language model from Mistral AI SAS (Paris, France). To do this, our server sends the text of your question, the current time and content from our directory (places, opening hours, prices) to Mistral AI. Your IP address and cookies are not transmitted to Mistral AI – the request is made by our server, not by your browser. Processing takes place on servers in the EU.
We do not store your questions or the answers. To prevent abuse, we limit the number of questions per visitor; for this purpose, a hash of your IP address is kept in the cache for no more than 24 hours. Please do not enter any personal data in the question field.
The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in answering visitors' questions about the directory quickly). Use is voluntary. For more information, see Mistral AI's privacy policy.
Affiliate links to ticket providers
Some place pages contain links, labeled as ads, to ticket providers (e.g., GetYourGuide or Tiqets). No data is transmitted to these providers when you open the place page. Only when you click on such a link do you leave our website; the provider then learns through the link that you came from WienCityGuide and may set cookies on its website in order to attribute a booking to us. The respective provider's privacy policy applies to this.
f) Audience measurement with Umami
To understand which pages are read, we use the open-source software Umami. We run it on our own server; the data does not go to any third-party provider. The data collected is the page visited, the referring page, browser, operating system, device type, screen size, language and the country derived from the IP address.
Umami does not set cookies and does not store IP addresses. Page views are grouped using an anonymized value that changes regularly; this makes it impossible to recognize you over a longer period or across other websites. If you enable “Do Not Track” in your browser, no measurement takes place.
We also count individual interactions: clicks on a listing's website, on route planning, on phone numbers and on ticket links, submitted searches (including the search term), and the fact that a question was asked on “Ask the Guide” – we do not record the text of the question.
The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in data-minimizing audience measurement to improve our service). For more information, see umami.is.
6. Legal bases
- Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR – legitimate interest in the secure operation of the website and in a consistent presentation of its content.
- Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR – performance of (pre-)contractual measures when you contact us or send inquiries.
- Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR – consent, where users voluntarily provide additional data.
7. Storage period
Server log files are generally deleted automatically after 30 days. Data from contact inquiries is stored for as long as processing the inquiry requires. Once the purpose no longer applies, or at the request of the data subject, the data is deleted, subject to statutory retention periods.
8. Your rights
Under the GDPR, you have the right to:
- access to the data stored about you (Art. 15 GDPR)
- rectification of inaccurate data (Art. 16 GDPR)
- erasure of your data (Art. 17 GDPR)
- restriction of processing (Art. 18 GDPR)
- data portability (Art. 20 GDPR)
- objection to processing (Art. 21 GDPR)
Please send any such requests to dk@netcreators.io. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Datenschutzbehörde (Austrian Data Protection Authority, www.dsb.gv.at).
9. Updates
This privacy policy is updated as needed to reflect changes in the law or new features on WienCityGuide.com. The version published on this page at any given time applies.