1. Overview
Kärcher North America, Inc. (“Kärcher,” "we," "us," or "our") is a leading manufacturer of commercial, industrial and consumer cleaning equipment in North America, and is a subsidiary of Kärcher Group. This privacy policy is designed to assist you in understanding how we collect, use, retain, process, store, share and transfer information you provide to us when accessing and using our website, accessible at https://karcher.com/us and each of our mobile apps, sites or portals that post a link to this Privacy Policy (“Sites”), and the services provided through our Sites (the “Services”).
If you use our Sites and Services, we collect various types of data from you. In some instances, the data will be considered “Personally Identifiable Information,” “Personal Information” or “Personal Data” under applicable laws. Generally, this type of data is information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual. This Policy describes how and why we collect information, and provides an overview of your choices and privacy rights relating to our collection, use and sharing of your data.
From time to time, we may change this Privacy Policy. If we do, we will post an amended version on this webpage. Please review this Privacy Policy periodically. Your continued use of the Sites and Services after any amendment confirms that you accept the terms of this Privacy Policy and any amendments in effect at the time of your use of the Sites and/or Services.
2. Contact Us
If you have any questions regarding data protection or your rights, please contact us:
Kärcher North America, Inc.
Legal Services
6398 Kärcher Way
Aurora, CO 80019
303-738-2400
privacy.us@karcher.com
3. Categories of Information We Collect
When we interact with you, we may collect the following types of Personally Identifiable Information from you.
A. Information you provide:
Identifiers:
- First and last name
- Customer number
- Mailing address, telephone number, and email address
- Account login credentials
Professional & Employment Information:
- Company or organization name and job title
- Information provided in connection with job applications, resumes, or employment inquiries
Geolocation & Address Data
- Street address, city, state, ZIP/postal code, country, and regional location data
Commercial & Intent Data
- Product interest and model selection
- Pre-sales requests (including requests for quotes, product demonstrations, service requests, catalog requests and financing inquiries)
- Warranty registration details
- Communications sent to or received from you through the Sites or Services, customer support requests, and free-text message comments
- Purchase, order, shipping, and return history
Financial & Payment Information
- Payment card information, bank account details, charge receipts, purchase orders, and billing records
Any Other Information You Provide To Us
B. Information we collect as you navigate our sites. We automatically collect certain Personally Identifiable Information through your use of the Sites and Services, such as the following:
Network Activity & Automated Technical Data
- IP address
- Usage and clickstream data (pages accessed, frequency of access, and links clicked while on the Sites)
- Technical connection details (browser type and version, browser plug-in types and versions)
- Device and mobile information (hardware model, operating system, application version number, device type [e.g., mobile or tablet], and mobile carrier
- Location information (city and regional location data)
- Referrer URLs, landing page URLs, and submission timestamps
- Ad campaign attribution parameters (such as UTM parameters [utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_terms, utm_content], PPC source codes, LeadSource and campaign metadata)
Cookies and Tracking Technologies
- Pixels, web beacons, session/persistent cookies, and local tracking technologies
We use cookies and other tracking technologies (such as pixels and web beacons) (collectively, “Cookies”) to collect information as you navigate our Sites. “Cookies” are small files of information that are stored by your web browser software on your computer hard drive, mobile or other devices (e.g., smartphones or tablets). We use cookies to:
- Estimate audience size and usage patterns;
- Understand and save your preferences for future visits, allowing us to customize the Sites and Services to your individual needs;
- Advertise new content, events and services that relate to your interests;
- Keep track of advertisements and search engine results;
- Compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interactions to resolve issues and offer better site experiences and tools in the future; and
- Recognize when you return to the Sites.
We set some cookies ourselves and others are set by service providers. We use cookies set by service providers to provide us with useful information to help us improve our Sites and Services, to conduct advertising, and to analyze the effectiveness of advertising.
Cookies can be blocked by changing your Internet browser settings to refuse all or some cookies. If you choose to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of the Sites.
You can find out more about cookies and how to manage them by visiting www.AboutCookies.org.
You can understand which third parties have currently enabled cookies for your browser or mobile device and how to opt-out of some of those cookies by accessing the Network Advertising Initiative website or the Digital Advertising Alliance’s website. For more information on mobile specific opt-out choices, visit the Network Advertising Initiative’s Mobile Choices website.
C. Third party information you provide. In some cases, we may receive certain Personally Identifiable Information from you about a third party. For example, you may purchase a product that is shipped to a third party. If you submit any Personally Identifiable Information about another individual to us, you are responsible for making sure that you have the authority to do so and to allow us to use their Personally Identifiable Information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
4. Why We Collect and How We Use Your Personally Identifiable Information
We use the Personally Identifiable Information we collect to provide the Services to you, to improve our Services and Sites, and to protect our legal rights. In addition, we may use the Personally Identifiable Information we collect to:
- Allow you to participate in features we offer on the Sites and Services
- Process your account registration
- Review your job application
- Email you information and promotional offers, including reminders for any checkout abandonment in our online shop
- Contact you regarding our products, services or promotions that we feel may be of interest to you
- Communicate with you about our Sites or Services or to inform you of any changes to our Sites or Services
- Provide support
- Tailor our content, advertisements and offers
- Maintain, debug, and secure our Sites, applications and API endpoints against error or fraud
- Defend our legal rights and the rights of others
- Determine your location and manage digital content rights
- Efficiently maintain our business operations
- Comply with applicable law
- Process pre-sales inquiries, quote requests, product demo bookings, service requests, catalog distributions, and financing applications
- Route lead intake requests to authorized Kärcher dealers, distributors, or service partners to fulfill customer inquiries
- Evaluate ad campaign performance, traffic sources, and marketing ROI using campaign attribution metadata (such as UTM tags) captured upon form submission
- System Security & Performance: Monitor network activity, prevent fraudulent lead submissions, debug software errors, and secure web form endpoints
Group-Wide Data Consolidation & Master Data Management: We merge personal data (such as contact details, purchase history, service inquiries, and app registrations) across our various digital and service touchpoints into a central customer system ("Data Lake") operated by our parent company, Alfred Kärcher SE & Co. KG. We match this data using your email address to eliminate duplicate records, maintain data quality, optimize customer support, and streamline customer communications. We do not use this central record for comprehensive behavioral profiling.
5. Information We Share With Third Parties
We may share the information that we collect about you in the following ways:
With service providers: We may share information with service providers who perform data hosting, maintenance, backup, analysis, email, payment processing, marketing, and advertising services on our behalf (e.g., email, hosting, maintenance, backup, analysis, etc.).
With authorized dealers and distributors: We share your contact details, location, product interest, and comments with our authorized Kärcher dealers, distributors, or service partners if you express interest in a product, submit a pre-sale lead form, or request a quote, demo, catalog, or service.
With Parent & Affiliate Companies (Kärcher Group): We share personal data with our parent company, Alfred Kärcher SE & Co. KG, and authorized Kärcher Group entities for central data lake storage, data deduplication, customer service enhancement, and corporate administration. Technical hosting for the Data Lake is maintained on cloud infrastructure in secure server locations either in the United States or in Europe.
With your consent: We may share information with other entities if you have consented to the disclosure.
To meet our legal requirements or exercise our rights: We share information when required by law, in legal proceedings, to establish or defend legal claims, or for fraud prevention.
- Corporate transactions: We may share information as part of corporate financing, business sales, asset sales, or mergers.
To ensure that your Personally Identifiable Information receives an adequate level of protection, we have put in place appropriate procedures with the service providers we share your Personally Identifiable Information with to ensure that your Personally Identifiable Information is treated by those service providers in a way that is consistent with and which respects the applicable laws on data security and privacy. For example, we use cloud data storage; payroll processors; accounting software; payment processors; marketing service providers.
6. Third Party Content and Advertising Services
Third-Party Links
Our Sites may contain links to websites, platforms, applications or services operated by third parties. These third parties may use their own cookies, web beacons and other tracking technology to collect information about you. They may also ask you to provide information. This Privacy Policy does not cover those practices and we encourage you to review the privacy policies and procedures of any third-party sites and services you use.
We may engage or work with other third parties to serve advertisements or other analytics on our Sites or Services.
Algolia AI Search
We use Algolia AI Search on our Sites to provide an optimized search function and improve user experience. When you use our search feature, Algolia processes your search queries, click events, and session user tokens to analyze and improve search performance. Algolia utilizes IP obfuscation to shorten IP addresses prior to storage and processing, retaining only generalized geographic location data for statistical purposes. For more information, please review Algolia's Privacy Policy.
Google Analytics 4
We use Google Analytics 4, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. Google Analytics uses cookies or other tracking technologies to help us analyze how users interact with the Sites and Services, compile reports on their activity, and provide other services related to their activity and usage. The technologies used by Google may collect information such as your IP address, time of visit, whether you are a returning visitor, and any referring website. IP anonymization is enabled by default, meaning IP addresses are used briefly to derive general geographic location data and are discarded immediately without being stored on disk. The technologies used by Google Analytics 4 do not gather information that personally identifies you. The information generated by Google Analytics will be transmitted to and stored by Google and will be subject to Google’s privacy policies. Learn more about Google’s partner services and how to opt-out of tracking of analytics by Google.
Google Ads
We use Google Ads for targeting and remarketing. We collect data about your activities that does not personally or directly identify you when you visit our Sites, the website for which we serve advertisements, or the websites and online services where we display advertisements. We use the information we collect to serve you more relevant advertisements (referred to as “Remarketing”). We collect information about where you saw the ads we serve you and what ads you clicked on. Users may opt out of Google’s use of cookies by visiting the Google Advertising Opt-out Page.
Google Consent Mode v2
We utilize Google Consent Mode v2 on our Sites to communicate user privacy preferences to Google services (including Google Analytics 4 and Google Ads) and dynamically adjust data collection based on your consent status or opt-out choices. Where tracking consent is withheld or where you have opted out of targeted advertising, Google Consent Mode ensures that Google tags operate in a restricted state—transmitting non-identifying, cookieless pings to measure aggregate performance and conversion metrics without reading or writing persistent tracking cookies on your device or processing personal identifiers. You may adjust your privacy choices or opt out of targeted advertising at any time using our website Cookie Settings or automated browser privacy signals (such as Global Privacy Control).
Interest-Based Ads
We may use cookies and other technologies on our Sites and third-party vendors to collect information about your online activities over time and across different websites you visit in order to provide you with interest-based advertising. You can generally opt-out of receiving interest-based advertisements from members of the Network Advertising Initiative or the Digital Advertising Alliance by visiting their opt-out pages: (https://www.networkadvertising.org/choices) and (https://www.aboutads.info/choices). When you opt-out using these links, please note that you may still receive advertisements. They just will not be personalized based on your interests.
“Do Not Track” & Opt-Out Preference Signals
Our Sites recognize automated browser privacy signals and opt-out preferences, including Global Privacy Control (GPC) and “Do Not Track” (DNT) browser signals in browsers that still support this. When such a signal is detected, our systems process it as a request to opt out of non-essential tracking and targeted advertising as described in Section 12.
7. Choices About Your Personally Identifiable Information
Review and Request Changes To Your Personally Identifiable Information
If you have an account with us, you may use your account to access, correct, or view certain Personally Identifiable Information we have collected and which is associated with your account. Alternatively, to review or request changes to any of your Personally Identifiable Information, please contact us at privacy.us@karcher.com.
Marketing Communications
You may unsubscribe from promotional emails at any time by clicking the "unsubscribe" link in the footer of our emails or by submitting a request to privacy.us@karcher.com.
8. Security
We maintain commercially reasonable security measures to protect the Personally Identifiable Information we collect and store from loss, misuse, destruction, or unauthorized access. However, no security measure or modality of data transmission over the Internet is 100% secure. Although we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personally Identifiable Information, we cannot guarantee absolute security.
Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our Sites or Services, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone. Unfortunately, however, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk.
9. Children's Privacy
The Sites and Services are not intended for or directed to children under 16 years of age. We do not intentionally or knowingly collect, use, sell or disclose personal information from children under 16. If we obtain knowledge that we have collected Children’s Personal Information, we will remove such data.
10. Data Retention
We store personal information only for as long as necessary to fulfill the business purposes for which it was collected, or as required by applicable legal obligations.
- Lead Intake & Pre-Sales Requests: Personal information submitted through web lead forms (including quote, demo, service, catalog, and financing requests) is retained for up to five (5) years.
- Transient Technical Data & Web Logs: Raw IP addresses, session Cookies, and campaign attribution metadata (such as UTM parameters) used for site functionality, security, and analytics are retained on a short-term basis (30 to 90 days) before being routinely deleted or anonymized.
- Transactional & Legal Records: Order histories, customer contracts, and executed business agreements are retained for five (5) to ten (10) years following contract expiration or final disposition, in accordance with applicable legal obligations.
11. Notice to Nevada Residents
Nevada law allows Nevada residents to opt-out of the sale of certain types of personal information. Subject to a number of exceptions, Nevada law defines “sale” to mean the exchange of certain types of personal information for monetary consideration to a person for the person to license or sell the information to additional persons. We do not currently sell personal information as defined in the Nevada law. However, if you are a Nevada resident, you still may submit a verified request to opt-out of sales and we will record your instructions and incorporate them in the future if our policy changes. Opt-out requests may be sent to privacy.us@karcher.com.
12. Notice to California Residents
This Notice to California Residents (“Notice”) is for California residents and supplements all other provisions of our Privacy Policy. This Notice provides required disclosures pursuant to the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.100 et seq.) ("CCPA").
The CCPA defines “personal information” to mean information that identifies, relates to, describes, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household. Personal information does not include information that is publicly available, deidentified or aggregate information. For purposes of this Notice section we will refer to this information as “Personal Information”.
This Notice covers our collection, use, disclosure, and sale of California Consumers’ Personal Information, except to the extent such Personal Information is exempt from the notice obligations of the CCPA for the twelve months preceding the Effective Date. Some of the data we collect and process is not subject to CCPA Consumer rights. For example we collect and process the following types of information that is currently exempted from the CCPA:
- Publicly available information (as defined by the CCPA)
A. YOUR RIGHTS. If you are a California resident, you have the following rights:
1. Right to Know: You have the right to request that we disclose what Personal Information of yours that we have collected, used, disclosed or sold in the 12 months. This right includes the right to request any or all of the following:
a. Specific pieces of Personal Information that we have collected about you;
b. Categories of Personal Information we have collected about you;
c. Categories of sources from which the Personal Information was collected;
d. Categories of Personal Information that we sold (if applicable) or disclosed for a business purpose about you;
e. Categories of third parties to whom the Personal Information was sold (if applicable) or disclosed for a business purpose; and
f. The business or commercial purpose for collecting or, if applicable, selling Personal Information.
Categories of Personal Information. In the preceding 12 months, we have collected the following categories of personal information about California residents:
- Identifiers (first and last name, customer number, account login credentials, email address, postal address, telephone number, and IP address)
- Professional or employment-related information: Company or organization name, customer role, job title, and information provided in connection with job applications
- Financial information (bank account details, payment card information, charge receipts, purchase orders, and billing records)
- Internet or other electronic network activity information (browsing history; usage and clickstream data; technical connection details [browser type and version, device model, operating system]; referrer and landing page URLs; submission timestamps; ad campaign attribution parameters [UTM parameters, PPC source codes, LeadSource, campaign metadata]; pixels, web beacons, and cookies; information regarding consumer’s interaction with website, application or advertisement)
- Geolocation data (street address, city, state, ZIP/postal code, country, and regional location data)
- Commercial information (records of products or services purchased, obtained or considered; pre-sales requests [requests for quotes, product demonstrations, service requests, catalog requests, and financing inquiries]; purchase, order, shipping, and return history; warranty registration details; customer support requests; and free-text message comments)
Sensitive Personal Information: We collect account login credentials to allow access to user accounts. We do not use or disclose Sensitive Personal Information for purposes other than those specified under California Privacy Rights Act regulations (Cal. Code Regs. tit. 11, § 7027(m)).
Categories of Sources of Personal Information. We collect personal information from the following sources:
You: We collect the content, communications, and other information you provide when you use our Sites and Services, including when you sign up for an account, make a purchase, create or share content, and message or communicate with us. We collect information about how you interact with our Sites and Services, and the time, frequency, and duration of your activities.
Other people: We may also receive and analyze content, communications, and information about you that other people provide when they use our Sites and Services, such as when an order is made and shipped to you.
Your device(s) and technology: We collect information from and about the computers, phones, connected TVs, and other web-connected devices you use that integrate with our Sites and Services, and we may combine this information across different devices you use.
Kärcher Companies: We may receive information from other Kärcher companies for business purposes that help us provide you with better products, services and online experiences. We may also process information about you across the Kärcher Companies for these purposes, as permitted by applicable law, and in accordance with their terms and policies.
Partners & Service Providers: We may receive information about you from our distributors or others who assist us in providing information and fulfilling orders. We may also share information with our service providers, such as payment processors, advertising providers, data analytics providers, and others identified above.
Business or Commercial Purposes for Collecting Personal Information. The business purposes for which we collect and use Personal Information is set forth in Section 4 above.
Disclosures of Personal Information for Business Purposes: In the preceding 12 months, we have disclosed all categories of Personal Information listed above for business purposes to the categories of third parties described in Section 5.
2. Right to Request Deletion: You have the right to request that we delete your Personal Information that we have collected from you.
3. Right to Opt Out of Sale or Sharing of Personal Information: You have the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of your Personal Information. In the preceding 12 months, we have not "sold" personal information for monetary consideration. To the extent third-party ad tracking cookies on our Sites are defined as "sharing" (for cross-context behavioral advertising) under California law, we may share Identifiers and Internet or other electronic network activity information with advertising and analytics partners. You may manage your choices via Cookie settings or submit an opt-out request. We do not have actual knowledge that we sell or share the personal information of consumers under 16 years of age. Our Sites recognize automated browser opt-out preference signals (such as Global Privacy Control / GPC) where required by applicable law.
4. Right to Non-Discrimination: You have the right not to receive discriminatory treatment by us if you exercise any of your rights under the CCPA.
5. Right to Correct Inaccurate Data: You have the right to request that we correct inaccurate Personal Information that we maintain about you.
B. HOW TO EXERCISE YOUR RIGHTS OR OBTAIN MORE INFORMATION. If you would like more information, or would like to exercise your privacy rights (including your “right to know,” “right to correct,” or your “right to request deletion,” email us at privacy.us@karcher.com or leave a message with your name, request, and contact information for a follow-up call on our toll free privacy line 1-833-220-2420.
C. OUR PROCESS FOR RESPONDING TO AND VERIFYING YOUR REQUESTS.
To protect your Personal Information, we will take steps to verify your identity before processing your request. Our verification process will differ depending on whether you have a password protected account with us and on the nature of your request.
For requests to access categories of Personal Information and for requests to delete or correct Personal Information that is not sensitive and does not pose a risk of harm by unauthorized deletion, we will verify your identity to a “reasonable degree of certainty” by verifying at least two data points that you previously provided to us and which we have determined to be reliable for the purpose of verifying identities.
For requests to access specific pieces of Personal Information or for requests to delete Personal Information that is sensitive and poses a risk of harm by unauthorized deletion, we will verify your identity to a “reasonably high degree of certainty” by verifying at least three pieces of Personal Information previously provided to us and which we have determined to be reliable for the purpose of verifying identities. In addition, you will be required to submit a signed declaration under penalty of perjury stating that you are the individual whose Personal Information is being requested.
Authorized Agent requests.
Under the CCPA, you may exercise these rights yourself or you may designate an authorized agent to make these requests on your behalf. If a request is submitted on your behalf by an authorized agent, we will require the agent to provide proof that the agent is authorized to act on your behalf.
D. SHINE THE LIGHT LAW. We do not disclose personal information obtained through our Sites or Services to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. Accordingly, we have no obligations under California Civil Code § 1798.83.
13. Notice to Residents of Other U.S. States
This section applies to residents of U.S. states that have enacted comprehensive consumer privacy statutes (including Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Oregon, Texas, and other applicable states). Sections 3, 4, and 5 of this Privacy Policy describe the categories of personal data we collect, the purposes for which we process it, and the third parties with whom we share it.
A. Your Statutory Consumer Rights:
Depending on your state of residence, you may possess the following rights regarding your personal data:
- Right to Confirm and Access: Right to confirm whether we process your personal data and to access such data.
- Right to Correct: Right to correct inaccuracies in your personal data, taking into account the nature and purpose of processing.
- Right to Delete: Right to delete personal data provided by or obtained about you.
- Right to Data Portability: Right to obtain a copy of your personal data in a portable and readily usable format.
- Right to Opt-Out of Targeting Advertising & Profiling: Right to direct us not to process your personal data for targeted advertising, the sale of personal data, or profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects.
B. How to Exercise Your Rights & Appeal Process:
To submit a request to access, correct, delete, or opt-out of targeted advertising, please email privacy.us@karcher.com or call toll-free at 1-833-220-2420. You may also manage targeted ad choices via our website Cookie settings.
Right to Object to Data Lake Consolidation: You have the right to object to the merging of your personal data from across different Kärcher touchpoints (such as our webshop, mobile apps, and service portals) into our central Data Lake. To request that your data be unlinked or excluded from central profile consolidation, please submit a request to privacy.us@karcher.com. Upon receiving your request, your email address will be designated to prevent automated profile matching across source systems.
Appeals Process: If we decline to take action on your privacy request, we will inform you of our decision and the legal basis for it. If you wish to appeal, email privacy.us@karcher.com within 60 days of receiving our decision. If your appeal is denied, we will provide information on how to contact your state Attorney General.
14. Notice to Residents of the European Economic Area
The General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) allows us to collect and use personal information from residents within the European Economic Area only for one or more of the following reasons:
- To fulfill a contract we have with you;
- When we have a legal duty;
- When it is in our legitimate interest; or
- When you provide consent.
If you reside in the European Economic Area and we have a business or commercial reason to use your personal information, this is considered a legitimate interest. We will tell you what that interest is in this Privacy Policy or any privacy notice provided to you at the time of the collection of the information. We will not use your personal information if such use is against your own interest.
The GDPR and other regulations treat some types of sensitive personal information as particularly sensitive, including information about racial or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, trade union membership, health data and criminal records. We will not collect or use these types of data without your consent unless the law allows us to do so. If we do, it will only be when necessary for reasons of substantial public interest or to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
If you reside in the European Economic Area, you have a number of rights under data protection laws in relation to the way we process your personal data. These are set out below. You may contact us directly to exercise any of these rights, and we will respond to any request received from you within one month from the date of the request. In very exceptional circumstances we may need to extend this timescale, but we will always tell you in advance if we do, and our reasons why.