# Privacy policy > URL: https://gridline-ads.com/privacy-policy/ How Gridline Ads handles your data: server log files, the contact form, Twitch stream statistics and the Gridline app. No cookies, no embedded third-party content. ## 1. General information and controller Protecting your personal data is important to us. This privacy policy explains which data is processed when you visit this website. Personal data is any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person. The controller within the meaning of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is: Sebastian Keutmeier Norddeutsche Straße 7, 24143 Kiel, Germany Email: ## 2. Hosting and server log files This website runs on a dedicated server operated by Hetzner Online GmbH, Industriestr. 25, 91710 Gunzenhausen, Germany, in a data centre in Germany. A data processing agreement pursuant to Art. 28 GDPR is in place with Hetzner. Each request automatically collects and stores access data (server log files): IP address, time, requested address, browser identification and referring page. This data is used to operate the website and to defend against attacks, and is deleted after 6 months. The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR (legitimate interest in providing the website in a stable and secure manner). ## 3. No cookies, no third-party content This website does not set any cookies for visitors and does not store anything in your browser. All parts of the website – including fonts and images – are delivered from our own server. No content from other providers is embedded. Links to other websites (for example YouTube) are plain links: data is only transferred when you follow a link, in which case the privacy policy of that provider applies. Only in the administration area is a technically necessary session cookie set for logged-in editors. ## 4. Contact form and email When you write to us using the contact form, we process your name, your email address, your message and the page on which you submitted the form. The message is stored on our server and forwarded to our email inbox. We use this information solely to answer your request; it is not passed on to third parties. The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR insofar as your request relates to a contract or pre-contractual measures, otherwise Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR (legitimate interest in answering enquiries). Stored messages are deleted automatically after 12 months, or earlier on request. To protect against automated spam, the form contains a field that is invisible to humans, and the number of messages per connection is limited. For this purpose, a non-reversible hash of your IP address is cached for one hour. The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR (legitimate interest in preventing abuse). If you email us directly, we likewise process your details only to answer you. We run our email inboxes ourselves on our own servers. ## 5. Twitch: stream statistics and channel linking **Stream statistics.** To measure how visible sim racing is, our server retrieves the publicly visible information on all live streams in the Twitch category “iRacing” every two minutes via the programming interface (API) of Twitch Interactive, Inc., 350 Bush Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94104, USA: channel ID, channel name, stream title, language, start time and current number of viewers. From this we calculate statistics such as viewer hours per stream and channel, which we use for our own evaluations and for reports to sponsors. No data about you as a visitor of this website is sent to Twitch. The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR (legitimate interest in measuring the reach of sim racing streams; the streamers publish this information themselves). The viewer counts, totals per stream (start, duration, viewer hours, peak) and channel names are kept as long as we need them for evaluations and sponsor reports. If you stream on Twitch and do not want your channel to be recorded, you can object at any time (Art. 21 GDPR) – an email to us is enough. **Linking your Twitch channel.** Drivers who race with Gridline Ads receive a personal link to connect their Twitch channel. The link takes you to Twitch, where you log in; Twitch’s [privacy notice](https://www.twitch.tv/p/legal/privacy-notice/) applies there. We do not request any permissions: Twitch only tells us your user ID, login name and display name. We use the access token issued by Twitch once to retrieve this information and revoke it immediately; it is not stored. We store your Twitch user ID, login name, display name, the time of linking and a label (usually your name) in order to attribute your streams to our cooperation. The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR (performance of the cooperation). The link is kept for as long as we work together, or removed earlier on request. ## 6. Gridline app and race participants **Drivers using the Gridline app.** Drivers who race with Gridline Ads use a small Windows program, the Gridline app. While it is running, it reads from the iRacing simulator on your PC which online session you are in and sends the following to our server at the start of a session, every minute and at the end: session number (subsession ID), your iRacing customer ID, track, type of session (practice, qualifying, race), the list of participants (iRacing customer ID and name, see below) and the version of the app. The app does not read or send any other data from your PC, no telemetry and no lap times. It only reports online sessions, not test sessions, replays or sessions in which you are spectating. The personal app token is stored on your PC; we only store a hash of it. We store your name, your iRacing customer ID, which sessions you took part in and when (time of receipt on our server, from the first to the last report) and the app version. We use this to show which races you drove with a sponsor livery and how many viewers watched these races on Twitch, for reports to sponsors and for your compensation. The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR (performance of the cooperation). We keep the data as long as we need it for evaluations, sponsor reports and settling up with you. If you stop using the app, nothing more is sent; we deactivate your token when the cooperation ends or on request. **Other participants in these sessions.** The app reports all participants in the session, as iRacing shows them to every participant. Our server immediately discards the participants who are not linked to a Twitch channel in our stream statistics (section 5). For participants whose iRacing customer ID is linked to a Twitch channel, we store which channel was in which session and when; combined with the stream statistics this shows how many viewers saw the race on Twitch. We add the iRacing customer ID to a Twitch channel based on publicly visible information (for example the stream itself or public profiles). Many streamers link to iRacing with a referral link on their Twitch channel page that contains their iRacing customer ID; our server therefore regularly retrieves the public description, panels and social links of channels without an iRacing customer ID from Twitch. If there is no such link there, it also looks at the public YouTube channel and link pages (such as Linktree) linked there, but only if they belong to the streamer (same name or a link back to this Twitch channel only). If it finds exactly one iRacing customer ID, it stores it for the channel together with the address of the page where it was found. The texts of these pages are not stored. To help with this, our server compares the names of participants with Twitch channels that have no iRacing customer ID yet and are streaming at that moment; if a name looks similar, we store the name, the iRacing customer ID and the channel as a suggestion and check it manually. Suggestions we reject are kept so that they are not suggested again. The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR (legitimate interest in measuring the reach of sim racing streams in the races of our drivers). The data is kept as long as we need it for evaluations and sponsor reports. You can object at any time (Art. 21 GDPR) by email to us: we then delete all data on your Twitch channel including its race participations and suggestions, and no longer record the channel. ## 7. Your rights Under the GDPR you have the right of access (Art. 15), rectification (Art. 16), erasure (Art. 17), restriction of processing (Art. 18), data portability (Art. 20) and to object to processing based on legitimate interests (Art. 21). To exercise your rights, please contact the controller (contact details above). You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority. The authority responsible for us is the Unabhängiges Landeszentrum für Datenschutz Schleswig-Holstein (ULD), Kiel, Germany. ## Last updated October 2026