Privacy Policy

2.1. Controller

The data controller means the person who determines the purposes and means of the processing of your personal data. For the processing activities described of in this privacy notice, the controller is

Merck KGaA

Frankfurter Strasse 250

64293 Darmstadt, Germany

Phone: +49 6151 72-0

Telefax: +49 6151 72-2000 

2.2.Data Protection Officer

Merck has appointed a Data Protection Officer. You may reach him/her as follows:

privacy@merckgroup.com

3.1. Operation of our Services

Merck has appointed a Data Protection Officer. You may reach him/her as follows:

privacy@merckgroup.com

We process your personal data for the purpose of the operation of our services. Whenever you access our services, you automatically transfer personal data to our servers for technical reasons.

This processing activity may include the following data categories:

Your IP address;

Identifier (manufacturer, version, type of web browser, operating system);

Language settings of your web browser;

The time of your visit and visited subpages of our website;

Your referrer URL (i.e. the URL of the page from which you visit us);

The data volume accrued during your visit to our website;

Access status (file transferred, file not found, etc.); and

Name of the provider of your internet access.

The data processing is based on our legitimate business interests. We process these data for the purpose of presenting our services and to ensure its technical stability and security (e.g. to prevent hacker attacks).

Data which is collected while browsing our website (e.g. IP Address) is regularly deleted after a period of fourteen days, beginning from your use of our service, unless a reasonably justified incident indicates a longer storage period (e.g. due to a hacking attack or for the provision of a service requested by you requiring your data). 

Adverse Events of enforcement of rights:

If we become aware of potential cases of adverse reactions to one of our products, we are required by law to document and share the relevant information, including personal information with authorities worldwide and, where necessary for further assessment, to contact the reporting parties.  In order to enforce our rights or to protect our rights or the rights of third parties with the holders of such rights, consultants and authorities.

No automated decision-making or profiling takes place.

3.2. Contact Forms

We process your personal data to operate the contact form we provide in our service. This enables you to contact us, and e.g. ask for additional information or issue other service requests.

Your personal data will only be processed for the purpose of responding to your inquiry.

This processing activity may include the following data categories:

The contact information you provided to us (such as your name and email address); and

Other personal information that you include in your request.

The processing is based on our legitimate business interests. It serves our and your legitimate interest in answering your inquiry in a quick and competent manner.

Your personal data will be deleted after six months from the date of collection, unless necessary for the provision of a service requested by you requiring your data. 

No automated decision-making or profiling takes place.

3.3. Social Bookmarks

We use social media plugins from various social networks (e.g., from YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter) on our services. Social bookmarks are internet bookmarks which enables the users of such services to collect links and news messages. With the help of these plugins you can share content or recommend products. We integrated such bookmarks as links only. That means that they just link you to corresponding services without automatically processing your personal data. If you decide to click on a social bookmark (meaning the embedded graphic), you will be directed to the page of the respective social media network. Please refer to the respective provider's privacy policy to learn how your personal data are handled when you decide to visit their services.

3.4. Cookies

Cookies improve the user experience on our services because they allow, e.g., the system to recognize returning visitors. The term "cookies" in this privacy notice refers to cookies and similar technologies. The term "computer" in this privacy notice refers to computers, smartphones and all other devices with internet access. Cookies are small, usually randomly coded text files that are sent to your computer and stored there. These cookies allow your browser to track certain information that may be retrieved and used by internet servers at a later stage. Merck uses cookies and similar technologies on its services for several reasons, for example:

Websites load faster;

Websites may be browsed faster;

Your settings, such as language and time zone, may be saved;

Security on websites is improved since your identity may be verified; and

Your log-in to secured websites is facilitated.

We included the following four  categories of cookies on our services:

3.4.1. Necessary Cookies

These cookies are necessary to safeguard the functionalities of our services and for the website to operate. Cookies are set, in particular, in response to your actions and depend on your specific service requests (e.g. setting your privacy preferences, filling out forms, or logging in). More specifically, we set the following cookies:

ak_bmsc:  This cookie is used by Akamai to optimize site security by distinguishing between humans and bots

bm_sv:  This cookie is associated with Akamai and is used to differentiate between traffic from humans and bots.

bm_mi:  Cookie for differentiating between unwanted, automated access and legitimate, human users.

The processing is based on our legitimate business interest to be able to provide our basic webservices in a secure and useful manner. Our website cannot function without these cookies and they can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences.

No automated decision-making or profiling takes place.

3.4.2. Personalization Cookies

These cookies enable the provision of advanced functionalities and are used for personalization. The cookies are set in particular in response to your actions and depend on your specific service requests (e.g. setting the language).

This website does not currently operate these type of cookies.

3.4.3. Comfort Cookies

These cookies allow us to provide more comfort for you. For example, previously searched products or services can be reloaded again after revisiting our website and you won’t need to enter all the details again. We can also detect if you need assistance with using our website and therefore offer you direct customer support.

This website does not currently operate these type of cookies.

3.4.4. Statistics Cookies

In order to continuously improve our website, we anonymously track data for statistical and analytical purposes. With these cookies we can, for example, track the number of visits or the impact of specific pages of our web presence and therefore optimize our content. 

s_cc:  This cookie is set by Adobe Analytics to determine if cookies are enabled or not.

Demdex:  The demdex cookie, set under the domain demdex.net, is used by Adobe Audience Manager to help identify a unique visitor across domains.

_gcl_au:  Provided by Google Tag Manager to experiment advertisement efficiency of websites using their services.

s_ppv:  The cookie is used to determine the percentage of the page that has been displayed to the user.

_ga:  This cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognize unique visitors.

_gid:  This cookie installed by Google Analytics, _gid cookie stores information on how visitors use a website, while also creating an analytics report of the website's performance. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously.

_gat:  Set by Google to distinguish users.

AMCVS_12D338B3527846AA0A490D4C%40AdobeOrg:  This cookie, set by Adobe Marketing Cloud, stores a unique ID to identify a unique visitor.

AMCV_12D338B3527846AA0A490D4C%40AdobeOrg:  This cookie, set by Adobe Marketing Cloud, stores a unique ID to identify a unique visitor.

s_ips:  This cookie is associated with Adobe Analytics. The cookie is used for measuring a visitor’s scroll activity to see how much of a page they view before moving on to another page.

s_tp:  This cookie is associated with Adobe Analytics. The cookie is used for measuring a visitor’s scroll activity to see how much of a page they view before moving on to another page.

The processing is based on your explicit consent you provided to us in the course of the subscription process. You either grant your consent by accepting all cookies in our cookie banner or by activating the cookie type you have selected. Your consent is voluntary, and you may revoke it at any time with effect for the future. You can revoke your consent by reopening our Cookie Center and deactivating the cookie type. If you do not grant your consent or revoke it, this will not result in any disadvantages for you. However, without your consent, the functions explained above will not be available to you.

Please note that the use of Google Analytics has been extended by the plug-in "AnonymizeIP", to ensure an anonymized collection of your IP address, so that we cannot relate your data to your person. The IP address transmitted by your browser as part of Google Analytics will not be merged with other data from Google.

This website uses Adobe Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Adobe Systems Software Ireland Limited ("Adobe") to store "analytical cookies" on your device. This means that information about users and the use of our website is transmitted to Adobe and processed by us on our behalf for the purpose of compiling reports on website activity, measuring website visits and visitors and providing similar services to us. This includes the transmission of your IP address, but will not be merged with other Adobe data. In addition, it is pseudonymized prior to the geolocalization and replaced by a generic IP address before storage.

3.4.5. Management and Deletion of Cookies

Some computer browsers automatically accept all cookies. In this case, you may not see the Cookie Center which allows you to manage your cookies individually. However, you can change your browser settings to block all cookies. You may also be able to configure your browser settings so that only certain types of cookies are blocked or so that you are notified as soon as a new cookie is to be stored on your computer. In this case, you can accept or reject cookies individually. If this function is available to you, you will find more detailed explanations in the help function of your browser. There you will also find information on how to delete all or certain cookies for which you have given us your consent. For more information on managing and deleting cookies for popular browsers, please see the following links: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Apple Safari.

4.1. Merck Group

To our worldwide affiliates, to the extent that this is permissible within the framework of the purposes and legal bases stated under 3. In these cases, our group companies will use the personal data for the same purposes and under the same conditions as described in this privacy notice (e.g., answering your inquiry about a product that falls within the area of expertise of a foreign Merck affiliate). A list of our affiliated group companies and their contact details can be found here. If and to the extent we transfer your personal data in this context to a country outside the EU or the EEA and to which no adequacy decision of the European Commission exists, we safeguard an adequate level of data protection by entering into the EU standard contractual clauses with such affiliate. You may obtain these EU standard contractual clauses here.

4.2. Service Provider

We may also engage service providers (data processors) within (e.g. shared service centers) or outside the Merck Group (e.g. hosting providers, support service providers) to process personal data in accordance with our instructions. In these cases, we retain control over and remain fully responsible for your personal data. We will take all reasonable safeguards required by applicable law to ensure the integrity and security of your personal data when engaging such service providers and will, should these service providers process your personal data in a country outside the EU or the EEA, safeguard an adequate level of data protection by entering into the EU standard contractual clauses with such service provider. You may obtain these EU standard contractual clauses here.

4.3. Public Authorities

In certain cases, we are required by law to transfer data to a requesting public authority.

Upon submission of a court order, we may be obliged by national Copyright Acts to provide owners of copyright and ancillary copyrights with information about customers who are alleged to have infringed copyright laws. In these cases, we may be obliged to transfer your personal data, in particular your user ID of an IP address allocated at the time requested and, if known, your name and address.

In other respects, personal data will only be transferred to state institutions and public authorities within the framework of mandatory national legal provisions or if disclosure is necessary in the event of attacks on the network infrastructure for legal or criminal prosecution.