Terms of service

RackList is an independent hosting-provider comparison service available at https://racklist.eu. The service is free for visitors and registered users. It enables browsing provider profiles, publishing user reviews (UGC), comparing providers and accessing community features.

Publisher

Mr Alexandre ETEOCLE, publishing on a non-professional basis within the meaning of article 1-1, II of French Act no. 2004-575 of 21 June 2004 (LCEN)

Address

Not published: the publisher's identification details have been provided to the site's hosting provider (see the legal notice).

Publication director

Mr Alexandre ETEOCLE

Editorial contact

contact@racklist.eu

Primary technical host

OVH SAS (France) - see the Legal notice for full details.

These Terms are drafted in compliance with Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 on digital services (DSA), French law 2004-575 of 21 June 2004 for confidence in the digital economy (LCEN), the French Consumer Code (notably articles L. 111-7-2 and L. 612-1), the French Intellectual Property Code, Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) and French law 78-17 as amended on informatics and freedoms.

In these Terms, the following terms have the meaning indicated below. DSA-specific concepts retain their official terminology; RackList-specific terms are re-defined in accessible language.

User

Any natural person of legal age registered on RackList with an active account (a 'recipient of the service' within the meaning of Article 3(b) of the DSA).

Visitor

Any natural or legal person browsing the service without being registered. Visitors may read profiles and reviews but cannot publish or interact.

Listed host

A company or organisation carrying on a hosting business whose profile has been created by the publisher or by a User, without having claimed control of it.

Claimant host

A business user (within the meaning of the P2B regulation) that has claimed ownership of its profile through the verification process set out in the Sales Terms.

Review

Textual content and rating published by a User describing their personal experience with a Listed host. Reviews are user-generated content (UGC) and works of the mind protected by intellectual property law.

Score

Global rating calculated by RackList from several public criteria (see section 9); it is not an arithmetic average of reviews nor an editorial recommendation.

Platform

All technical and editorial features offered by the publisher at https://racklist.eu, including the website, APIs, content and related services.

Content

Any data published on the Platform: reviews, host responses, notices, messages, profiles, media.

Moderation

All human and automated actions aimed at verifying the compliance of Content with these Terms and the law.

Notice & action

Procedure by which a User, Visitor or third party notifies the publisher of Content they consider illegal, within the meaning of Article 16 DSA.

Illegal content

Any Content that does not comply with Union law or applicable national law, whatever the form or subject matter (Article 3(h) DSA).

Sub-user

Natural person invited by a Claimant host to act on the profile within the scope of the permissions granted (commercial, support, technical).

Trusted flagger

Entity awarded by the national Digital Services Coordinator the status set out in Article 22 DSA; its notices are processed with priority.

These Terms set out the conditions under which the publisher makes the Platform available to Users and Visitors, and the rights and obligations of the parties. They apply to any access to and use of the service.

The Terms apply cumulatively with the Privacy Policy, the Legal notice, the AI Charter and, for Claimant hosts, the Sales Terms. In case of contradiction between these Terms and the Sales Terms, the Sales Terms prevail within their own scope (claim process and paid offerings). The Privacy Policy prevails on data-protection matters.

The Terms do not govern relations between Users and Listed hosts (hosting purchases, service contracts, host SLAs): those relations are subject to each host's own conditions.

Mere navigation on the Platform constitutes acceptance of the provisions applying to Visitors, notably the fair-use rules and security measures. Visitors are not subject to sections requiring an account.

Registration requires express acceptance of these Terms, through a checkbox that is never pre-ticked. The Privacy Policy is brought to the User's attention at the same time: it informs them of how their data is processed and does not call for any acceptance. Acceptance of the Terms is time-stamped and kept together with the exact text of the accepted version, as evidence, pursuant to Article 1366 of the French Civil Code.

An account created before this record existed accepts the Terms once, at its next sign-in. Until it does, the User may browse the Platform but may neither publish nor edit content. They always keep access to their account security, their rights over their data, reporting and account closure.

The User accepts that the version in force at the time of their action (publication, notice, purchase) is the one binding upon them.

Registration is reserved for natural persons aged at least 18. This requirement reflects the service's nature (assessment of hosting purchases, paid subscriptions by Claimant hosts) and simplifies the processing of personal data under Article 8 GDPR and Article 45 of the French data-protection law.

The User declares they have legal capacity to enter into contracts and, where acting on behalf of a company, hold the necessary authority to bind it.

Registration is denied to persons banned from the Platform, holders of dormant accounts suspended for fraud, and entities subject to restrictive measures applicable within the European Union.

A User may only hold a single primary account. Creating multiple accounts for the purpose of abuse, moderation circumvention or scoring manipulation is prohibited and justifies immediate termination.

An account can be created with email and password, or via a third-party identity provider (Google, Discord, GitHub, ClientXCMS) subject to those providers' own conditions. The email address must be valid, unique and controlled by the User.

The User undertakes to provide accurate information and to keep it up to date. A significant inaccuracy (identity, email) may justify suspension pending verification.

The User is responsible for the confidentiality of their credentials. They undertake to use a strong password, not to share it and to report without delay any suspected compromise to contact@racklist.eu. The publisher implements proportionate technical measures (password hashing, anomaly detection, session pseudonymisation) to protect accounts.

The User may close their account at any time from their personal space. Closure triggers anonymisation of the account and deindexing of related data within a maximum period of 30 days, in accordance with the Privacy Policy. Already-published reviews may remain online in anonymised form, unless a reasoned erasure request is submitted.

The User undertakes to use the Platform in compliance with the law, these Terms and third-party rights. They acknowledge in particular the following undertakings.

• Not to publish any Illegal Content, content contrary to public order or morality, and in particular no defamatory content (French press act of 29 July 1881), hateful, discriminatory, pornographic, child-sexual-abuse, terrorist content, incitement to violence, or content infringing third-party rights.
• Not to use the Platform for purposes contrary to its object: fake or paid reviews, scoring manipulation, mass scraping, moderation circumvention, fake-account creation, impersonation.
• Not to jeopardise the security or availability of the service: no injection, unauthorised automation, exploitation of vulnerabilities or denial-of-service. Security testing is only permitted under a publisher-announced responsible-disclosure programme.
• Not to publish personal data of third parties (name, contact details, identity documents, identifying screenshots) without a legal basis. Screenshots containing identifying elements must be redacted.
• To publish only Content for which the User holds the necessary rights or has obtained authorisation; third-party excerpts must comply with the exceptions of Article L. 122-5 of the French Intellectual Property Code (brief quotation, press review).

Publishing reviews on RackList is governed by Article L. 111-7-2 of the French Consumer Code and decree 2017-1436 of 29 September 2017. The review-handling method is described below in a fair, clear and transparent manner.

Genuine experience

Every review must be based on a real personal experience with the Listed host. The User must indicate the date or period of the experience. The publisher recommends at least 30 days of use before publishing, except for incidents warranting immediate feedback.

No consideration

Reviews give rise to no consideration. The User undertakes to report any commercial solicitation intended to influence their review. The publisher does not offer sponsored ranking or pay-to-rank.

Conflicts of interest

A User operating or employed by a competing host shall refrain from reviewing that host, or shall explicitly disclose the connection in the body of the review.

Review controls

Reviews are subject to systematic control combining email verification, automated fraud analysis (see section 14) and ex-post human moderation upon notice or sampling.

Display

Each published review shows the publication date, the author-indicated experience date, whether the review is controlled (yes/no) and, where applicable, the external source (Trustpilot, Google) via an explicit visual cue.

Machine translation

As the Platform is offered in several languages, a published review may be machine translated into the other languages of the site, including in the widgets made available to Hosts. Every machine translation is labelled as such and the original review remains accessible in one click. Only the version written by its author is authoritative: a machine translation cannot be held against them. The author may at any time write or correct the version of a review in another language themselves, in which case their version replaces the machine translation. Processing is carried out by a machine translation provider acting as a processor, under the conditions described in the personal data section.

Retention

Reviews are retained as long as they are published on the Platform, then stored in an encrypted archive for five (5) years for evidentiary purposes (civil limitation period, Article 2224 of the French Civil Code), before definitive purge.

Grounds for refusal

A review may be refused or withdrawn if it breaches these rules, is illegal or is flagged by fraud detection. The precise grounds are notified to the author (see section 12).

Modification by the author

The author may modify their review at any time; the publication date is updated and history is preserved to safeguard integrity.

Hosting provider ranking on the Platform relies on public parameters, set out below in accordance with Article 5 of Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 (P2B). RackList also follows the recommender system transparency principles set out in Article 27 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (DSA).

The Score combines five families of criteria, each scored out of twenty (20) points subject to the exception set out below for an unclaimed listing, to which bonuses are added and from which penalties are deducted; the overall score ranges from zero (0) to one hundred (100). Precise parameters may evolve; any substantial change is notified to Claimant hosts with a thirty (30) day notice.

For UGC, the publisher acts as a hosting service provider within the meaning of Article 6 LCEN and Article 3(g)(iii) DSA. No general monitoring is carried out, in accordance with Article 8 DSA.

Moderation combines automated tools (fraud detection, notice filters) and human review. Human intervention remains the basis for high-impact decisions (removal, suspension, ban).

Possible decisions are: publication, conditional maintenance, pre-publication refusal, evidence request to the author before deciding, post-publication removal, holding, temporary account suspension, permanent ban.

Content reported by Trusted flaggers (Article 22 DSA) is processed with priority, without prejudice to the substantive assessment. Abuse of notices may trigger corrective measures against notifiers (Article 23.2 DSA).

Any person, registered or not, may report Content they consider illegal through the dedicated form available on the Platform. The mechanism complies with Article 16 DSA.

The form collects: (a) a precise explanation of the reasons why the Content is considered illegal; (b) the exact URL of the reported Content; (c) the notifier's name and email, except for child-sexual-abuse offences for which anonymity is preserved; (d) a good-faith statement.

An acknowledgement is sent to the notifier without undue delay. A reasoned decision is communicated within a reasonable period, in principle under fifteen (15) working days, extendable for complex cases.

Any moderation decision affecting Content or an account is notified in writing to the User concerned, in accordance with Article 17 DSA.

The notice includes: the nature of the decision (removal, refusal, suspension, etc.), the facts and circumstances relied upon, the legal basis or clause of the Terms applied, an indication of any use of automated means, and the available redress avenues (internal complaint and out-of-court settlement).

Reasons are stated with sufficient precision to allow the User to effectively exercise their right of redress. Decisions are transmitted to the Commission's public transparency database where required.

Any User receiving a moderation decision has an electronic, free-of-charge right of complaint, open for six (6) months from the decision, in accordance with Article 20 DSA.

Complaints are submitted through the dedicated form available from the personal space and from the decision notice. They must set out the reasons for contesting the decision.

Complaints are reviewed by a qualified natural person, separate from the initial automated processing. A reasoned final decision is communicated within a reasonable period, in principle under thirty (30) working days. Where the complaint is well-founded, the initial decision is reversed without undue delay.

To preserve the integrity of reviews and the Score, the publisher operates a fraud-detection mechanism described under Article 6(1)(f) GDPR on the basis of legitimate interests.

The mechanism analyses the connection IP address, the browser technical fingerprint (user-agent and characteristics), session signals and publication history. These elements are treated as personal data, consistent with CJEU judgment C-582/14 Breyer.

The balancing test is documented in a data protection impact assessment (DPIA) and favours transparency via this clause, minimisation of collected data, and short retention periods specified in the Privacy Policy.

Any Listed host, whether claimed or not, enjoys a right of reply to reviews concerning its services.

The reply is published immediately next to the original review, after moderation. It is subject to the same rules (fairness, no insults, no personal data of the review author). This right does not prevent the publication of the original review; it is a right of reply, not a veto right.

Exercise of this right requires, for Claimant hosts, completion of the claim procedure set out in the Sales Terms. Non-claimant hosts may request access through the support channel upon proof of status.

A Claimant host may invite collaborators (commercial, support, technical) to manage its profile within the scope of permissions granted individually.

The Claimant host remains solely liable for the acts of its sub-users. Sub-users are personally bound to comply with these Terms, with confidentiality and with their company's instructions.

Available permissions cover notably statistics access, review reading, review responses, profile editing, analytics access and team management. The Claimant host may revoke access at any time.

The User retains intellectual property rights over the Content they publish, including their reviews. Publication grants the publisher the licence described below, drafted in accordance with Article L. 131-3 of the French Intellectual Property Code.

Rights granted

Reproduction, representation, adaptation (including FR↔EN translation and responsive formats), extraction of excerpts for editorial purposes, public communication on the Platform and its official communication channels.

Purposes

(a) operation on the Platform; (b) promotion of the service (official social media, newsletter) limited to attributed excerpts; (c) scoring and aggregated statistics; (d) evidentiary moderation archive.

Territory

Worldwide, the Platform being accessible via the Internet.

Duration

The licence is granted as long as the review is published. Upon withdrawal or account deletion, the review is deindexed within a maximum period of thirty (30) days, then retained in an encrypted archive for five (5) years for evidentiary purposes, before definitive purge.

Exclusivity and consideration

The licence is non-exclusive and granted free of charge. No transfer to a third party is authorised, except technical sub-processors strictly required to operate the service (hosting, CDN, backups), bound by the same security commitments.

Moral rights

The author's moral rights are respected: authorship is preserved by displaying the pseudonym or identity chosen by the author, and the integrity of the Content is protected - the publisher makes no alteration that would distort its meaning.

The User warrants to the publisher that they hold the rights necessary for the Content published and that it infringes no third-party right. Upon any claim, the User undertakes to provide all information useful to the publisher's defence.

The Platform, its code, databases, trademarks, logos, graphic elements, scoring methodology and documentation are the exclusive property of the publisher or its partners, protected by intellectual property law and the sui generis right over databases (Articles L. 341-1 et seq. of the French Intellectual Property Code). Any unauthorised reproduction, substantial extraction or reuse is prohibited.

The Platform may contain links to third-party websites or services. The publisher has no control over such sites and cannot be held liable for their content, terms of use or data-protection practices. Host trademarks and logos displayed on profiles are reproduced for information and identification purposes, under the exceptions of Article L. 713-6 of the French Intellectual Property Code; rights-holders retain all their rights.

The publisher may suspend or terminate an account, as a precautionary or definitive measure, on the following grounds, listed as illustrative and non-exhaustive.

Save for urgency tied to the severity of the Content or an imminent risk to the Platform, suspension or ban is preceded by a reasoned warning allowing the User to rectify the situation. Decisions are notified as per section 12 and open the complaint right of section 13.

Suspension restricts access during the procedure; termination triggers account anonymisation. Already-published reviews may remain online in anonymised form, under the licence granted in section 17. The User may request full deletion on the basis of the right to erasure.

For UGC, the publisher acts as a hosting service provider within the meaning of Article 6 LCEN and the DSA. Its liability for such Content can only be engaged within the limits set by those texts.

Reviews express the personal and subjective opinion of their author. They do not constitute an editorial recommendation of the publisher nor advice to choose any host.

The publisher undertakes to deploy reasonably available means to ensure the availability, security and quality of the service. This is a best-efforts obligation, not a result obligation. No contractual availability guarantee or SLA is offered to Visitors or consumer Users.

The processing of personal data of Users and Visitors is described in the Privacy Policy, which prevails over these Terms on data-protection matters. The main purposes cover account management, review publishing, fraud detection, transactional communication and compliance. Rights of access, rectification, erasure, objection, restriction and portability are exercised at the dedicated data-protection contact (contact@racklist.eu). Given the nature of the processing, the appointment of a Data Protection Officer is not mandatory under Article 37 of the GDPR; requests are handled directly by the publisher within thirty (30) days. Users may at any time lodge a complaint with the French DPA (CNIL).

The publisher may modify the Terms for legal, technical or editorial reasons. Any substantial modification is subject to individual email notification to registered Users and a banner on the Platform, with a notice period of at least thirty (30) days before entry into force.

During the notice period, the User may accept the new version, stop using the service or terminate their account. Continued use beyond entry into force constitutes acceptance of the new version.

Each published version is kept exactly as it was put online. Kept versions remain available on the Platform and can be compared passage by passage. Older versions, prior to this record, are provided upon written request to contact@racklist.eu, for evidentiary and transparency purposes.

In accordance with Articles L. 612-1 et seq. of the French Consumer Code, the publisher invites consumer Users to favour an amicable solution before any judicial action, via prior contact at contact@racklist.eu.

A consumer mediator approved by the French Consumer Mediation Evaluation and Control Commission (CECMC) is being appointed. Full contact details will be communicated upon effective subscription and will update these Terms accordingly.

Under Article 21 DSA, the User also has the right to refer a moderation decision to an approved out-of-court dispute settlement body, without prejudice to their right to court action.

These Terms are governed by French law.

For disputes with non-consumer users, traders or legal entities, exclusive jurisdiction is granted to the courts of Lyon (France), including in cases of multiple defendants or third-party proceedings.

These Terms are drawn up in French. An English translation is provided as a courtesy; in case of discrepancy, the French version prevails.

For any question regarding these Terms, a moderation decision or a notice, Users may address the following contact points.

Editorial contact

contact@racklist.eu

Moderation questions

contact@racklist.eu

Security / incidents

contact@racklist.eu

Personal data

contact@racklist.eu

Postal address

Not published: the publisher's identification details have been provided to the site's hosting provider (see the legal notice).

Versions kept since the archive was set up can be compared passage by passage. Older versions are provided upon written request at contact@racklist.eu.

Compare versions

Version in force

Version of 10/10/2026

Previous versions

• 04/10/2026 - Legal basis of the ranking and actual score levers clarified. Publisher identity aligned with the legal notice.
• 27/09/2026 - Score criteria described the way they are computed.
• 13/09/2026 - Reviews may be machine-translated, the original version remaining available.
• 06/08/2026 - Change of technical host, and immediate publication of reviews with a request for evidence when a review is reported.
• 14/05/2026 - Publisher identification updated and single point of contact.
• 19/04/2026 - First publication.