At DKE, accessible from https://dkefirm.com, one of our main priorities is the privacy of our visitors. This Privacy Policy discloses how we gather, use and protect your personal data.

If you have additional questions or require more information about our Privacy Policy, do not hesitate to contact us by submitting the form on our Contact Us page.

1. Consent

During the course of carrying out our business and performing our services, DKE collects personal data to conduct our business, provide and market our services, and meet our legal obligations. Likewise, we may also collect personal data for other purposes, which we would describe in more detail to you at the point we collect the personal data.

You may refuse to provide us with some or all of your personal data; however, this may limit the ways in which we can interact with you, including providing you with our services.

By using our website, you hereby consent to our Privacy Policy and agree to its terms.

2. Log Files

DKE follows a standard procedure of using log files. These files log visitors when they visit websites. Most hosting companies do this as a part of hosting services’ analytics. The information collected by log files include internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date and time stamp, referring/exit pages, and possibly the number of clicks. These are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable. The purpose of the information is for analyzing trends, administering the site, tracking users’ movement on the website, and gathering demographic information.

3. Contact Forms

If you contact us directly, we may receive information about you such as your name, email address, phone number, the contents of the message and/or attachments you may send us, and any other information you may choose to provide.

3.1 Google reCAPTCHA

We use “Google reCAPTCHA” (hereinafter “reCAPTCHA”) on our website. reCAPTCHA is used to check whether the data entered on our website (such as on a contact form) has been entered by a human or by an automated program. To do this, reCAPTCHA analyzes the behavior of the website visitor based on various characteristics. This analysis starts automatically as soon as the website visitor enters the website. For the analysis, reCAPTCHA evaluates various information (e.g. IP address, how long the visitor has been on the website, or mouse movements made by the user). The data collected during the analysis will be forwarded to Google.

The reCAPTCHA analyses take place completely in the background. Website visitors are not advised that such an analysis is taking place.

For more information about Google reCAPTCHA and Google’s privacy policy, please visit https://policies.google.com/privacy.

4. Comments

When a visitor leaves comments on the site, we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to assist with spam detection.

4.1 Gravatar

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

4.2 Spam Detection

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service called Akismet. Akismet is a spam filtering service that filters spam from comments, trackbacks, and contact form messages. The filter works by combining information about spam captured on all participating sites, and then using those spam rules to block future spam. Akismet is offered by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com. Read their privacy policy here: https://automattic.com/privacy/.

5. Media

If you upload images or videos to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

6. Cookies

DKE’s website makes use of cookies to save and retrieve information about your visit to our sites. Cookies are small files of software which save and retrieve information about your visit to a website or application. They reside in your internet browser to help remember your preferences and previous activity.

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited.

7. Third Party Applications

7.1 Third Party Privacy Policies

As explained in Section 6 above, cookies are used for many purposes such as to analyze your use of our website and to serve ads when you visit our website. The information we collect and share with third parties through cookies is aggregated and therefore anonymous (it does not include personal information which is likely to identify you). The information may be used to serve you ads in relation to our services when you visit our website and third party websites.

Many applications such as Google Analytics also use electronic images known as web beacons (sometimes called single pixel gifs) and are used along with cookies to compile aggregated statistics to analyze how our site is used.

Note that DKE has no access to or control over these cookies or web beacons that are used by third-party advertisers.

DKE’s Privacy Policy does not apply to other advertisers or websites. Thus, we are advising you to consult the respective Privacy Policies of these third-party service providers for more detailed information. It may include their practices and instructions about how to opt-out of certain options.

You can choose to disable cookies through your individual browser options. To know more detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers, it can be found at the browsers’ respective websites.

7.2 Social Media

Our website includes plugins for the social media organizations listed below.

Facebook plugins (Like and Share buttons)

The Facebook plugins can be recognized by the Facebook logo or the Like button on our site. For an overview of Facebook plugins, see https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/.

When you visit our site, a direct connection between your browser and the Facebook server is established via the plugin. This enables Facebook to receive information that you have visited our site from your IP address. If you click on the Facebook “Like button” while you are logged into your Facebook account, you can link the content of our site to your Facebook profile. This allows Facebook to associate visits to our site with your user account. Please note that, as the operator of this site, we have no knowledge of the content of the data transmitted to Facebook or of how Facebook uses these data. For more information, please see Facebook’s privacy policy at https://www.facebook.com/policy.php.

If you do not want Facebook to associate your visit to our site with your Facebook account, please log out of your Facebook account.

Twitter plugin

When you use Twitter and the “Retweet” function, the websites you visit are connected to your Twitter account and made known to other users. In doing so, data will also be transferred to Twitter. We would like to point out that, as the provider of these pages, we have no knowledge of the content of the data transmitted or how it will be used by Twitter. For more information on Twitter’s privacy policy, please go to https://twitter.com/privacy.

Your privacy preferences with Twitter can be modified in your account settings at https://twitter.com/settings/account.

Instagram plugin

If you are logged into your Instagram account, you can click the Instagram button to link the content of our pages with your Instagram profile. This means that Instagram can associate visits to our pages with your user account. As the provider of this website, we expressly point out that we receive no information on the content of the transmitted data or its use by Instagram.

For more information, see the Instagram Privacy Policy at https://instagram.com/about/legal/privacy/.

Pinterest plugin

When you visit a page containing the Pinterest social plugin, your browser establishes a direct connection to the Pinterest servers. The plugin transmits this log data to Pinterest servers in the United States. This log data may include your IP address, the address of the websites visited, which also includes Pinterest features, browser type and settings, the date and time of the request, how you use Pinterest, and cookies.

More information about the purpose, scope and further processing and use of data by Pinterest, as well as your rights and options to protect your privacy, can be found in the privacy notices of Pinterest at https://policy.pinterest.com/en/privacy-policy.

7.3 Analytics

Like many other websites, DKE uses tracking analytics service providers. These services use cookies and other methods to store information including visitors’ preferences, and the pages on the website that the visitor accessed or visited. The information is used to optimize the users’ experience by customizing our website content based on visitors’ browser type and/or other information.

In order to ensure that the content from DKE remains up to date, user-oriented and comprehensive, this website employs a few analytics tracking services.

Tracking Vendors

Our website measures activity and conversions using visitor action pixels from various tracking vendors including Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter.

The data collected is anonymous to us and we cannot use it to draw any conclusions about our users’ identities. However, the data are stored and processed by the tracking vendors. We have no control over how this data is used. You can read the individual privacy policies below.

Facebook’s privacy policy: https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/
Pinterest privacy policy: https://policy.pinterest.com/en/privacy-policy
Twitter privacy policy: https://twitter.com/en/privacy

WordPress Stats

WordPress Stats uses cookies that are stored on your computer and allow an analysis of the use of the website. The information generated by the cookies about the use of our website is stored on servers in the USA. Your IP address will be anonymized after processing and before storage.

WordPress Stats cookies remain on your device until you delete them.

Read more about WordPress Stats at https://wordpress.com/support/tracking-opt-outs/.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics uses cookies that track your preferences during your visit to our websites. This allows us to simplify navigation, for example, thereby helping us to make the website more user-friendly. The information that is generated in this process (including the IP address) is anonymized, making personal identification impossible. An evaluation for reporting purposes is carried out only after the anonymization process. The data generated by this cookie are usually transferred and stored on a server in the USA.

In addition, our website uses third-party cookies from Google Analytics for Display Advertisers, including the following features:

Google Display Network Impression Reporting – which gives us additional insight into who has viewed our paid digital advertising on other websites. This will help us optimize and tailor our advertising.
DoubleClick Platform integrations & Remarketing with Google Analytics – the integrations between both our web analytics and paid advertising platforms together to give us additional insight. This allows us to tailor our advertising to ensure the right types and offers are shown to you while you are using the internet outside our website.
Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting – which gives us insight into behavior information relating to visitor age, gender and interests on an anonymous and aggregate level. This will help us to understand browsing behavior to give you a better experience whilst visiting our sites.

7.4 Google Web Fonts

For uniform representation of fonts, this website uses web fonts provided by Google. When you open a page, your browser loads the required web fonts into your browser cache to display texts and fonts correctly.

For this purpose your browser has to establish a direct connection to Google servers. Google thus becomes aware that our web page was accessed via your IP address. The use of Google Web fonts is done in the interest of a uniform and attractive presentation of our website.

If your browser does not support web fonts, a standard font is used by your computer.

Further information about handling user data, can be found at https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq and in Google’s privacy policy at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/.

7.5 Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager (“GTM”) is a tag management system to manage JavaScript and HTML tags used for tracking and analytics on websites. Tags are small code elements that, among other things, are used to measure traffic and visitor behavior to understand the effect of online advertising and social channels; to set up remarketing and orientation towards target groups; and to test and optimize websites. GTM makes it easier for us to integrate and manage our tags.

If you have performed tracking deactivation, GTM takes this deactivation into account. For more information about GTM’s privacy practices can be found at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en and terms of use at https://www.google.com/analytics/tag-manager/use-policy/.

7.6 Embedded content from other websites

Articles and pages on this website may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These other websites (often referred to as “third-party sites”) may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

For example, this Website embeds videos provided by YouTube LLC (“YouTube”). Using YouTube’s offering requires a connection to be established to YouTube’s servers in the US. During this process, certain information is transmitted to YouTube. DKE does not control the collection, storage and use of any of your information by YouTube and does not have access to any information collected. You should read YouTube’s Privacy Policy carefully before you use any YouTube features.

Further information about how your data are collected and used by YouTube and your rights in relation to this can be found in YouTube’s privacy policy at https://www.youtube.com/about/policies/#community-guidelines.

8. Mobile phone information

No mobile information will be shared with third parties/affiliates for marketing/promotional purposes. All the above categories exclude text messaging originator opt-in data and consent; this information will not be shared with any third parties.

9. Surveys and Contests

DKE may conduct surveys and contests on this website, on DKE social media channels or via other DKE channels and publications. Unless indicated otherwise, DKE will collect, process and use your personal data revealed by you for purposes of participating in these surveys or contests only as necessary to carry out the respective survey or contest. We will inform you prior to your participation about what information we will collect and how we intend to use the information collected.

10. How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

Third-party cookies may last anywhere from a day to a year. Read Section 7 above for more information on how third party applications manage your data.

11. What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this website or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

DKE participates in interest-based advertising (where you may have visited our websites or another website which allows us to display advertising relating to our Services). The Network Advertising Initiative has developed a tool that may help you understand which third parties have currently enabled cookies for your browser and how to opt out of those cookies. For more information and to opt out of interest-based advertising, you can visit this page.

Your browser probably gives you cookie choices. For example, most browsers let you block “third-party cookies,” which are cookies from sites other than the one you’re visiting. Those options vary from browser to browser, so check your browser settings for more info. The functionality of our services may be limited when cookies are disabled.

Your mobile device has settings that allow you to control whether ad partners can use information about your use of mobile applications to show ads to you. On iOS devices, this setting is called “Limit Ad Tracking” and on Android devices, this setting is called “Opt out of Ads Personalization.”

To provide website visitors more choice on how their data is collected by Google Analytics, Google has developed an Opt-out Browser add-on, which is available by visiting Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on. This tool enables you to prevent Google’s acquisition and processing of the information that is generated by the cookie and your activity on the website (including your IP address) and allows you to opt out of Google’s programs.

Further information on the terms of use and the privacy options of Google are available at https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/terms/us/.

12. Children’s Information

Another part of our priority is adding protection for children while using the internet. We encourage parents and guardians to observe, participate in, and/or monitor and guide their online activity.

DKE does not knowingly collect any Personal Identifiable Information from children under the age of 13. If you think that your child provided this kind of information on our website, we strongly encourage you to contact us immediately and we will do our best efforts to promptly remove such information from our records.

13. CCPA Privacy Rights (Do Not Sell My Personal Information)

Under the CCPA, among other rights, California consumers have the right to:

Request that a business that collects a consumer’s personal data disclose the categories and specific pieces of personal data that a business has collected about consumers.
Request that a business delete any personal data about the consumer that a business has collected.
Request that a business that sells a consumer’s personal data, not sell the consumer’s personal data.

If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you. If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us by submitting the form on the Contact Us page.

14. GDPR Data Protection Rights / How to Contact Us

We would like to make sure you are fully aware of all of your data protection rights. Every user is entitled to the following:

The right to access. You have the right to request copies of your personal data. We may charge you a small fee for this service.
The right to rectification. You have the right to request that we correct any information you believe is inaccurate. You also have the right to request that we complete the information you believe is incomplete.
The right to erasure. You have the right to request that we erase your personal data, under certain conditions.
The right to restrict processing. You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.
The right to object to processing. You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.
The right to data portability. You have the right to request that we transfer the data that we have collected to another organization, or directly to you, under certain conditions.