Poll: Do you read TOS before buying?

Thanks for the kind words on our reduction, @olespete. I should clarify: I'm no longer with Contabo, just a customer now, but I still follow their updates.

To @pablowild's point: EU providers do face limits on enforcing German contracts against Argentinian residents. The Brussels Ia regulation and Hague Choice of Court conventions create real friction. Not zero risk, but not "fly to Nuremberg" either.

For EU customers specifically: the 2019 Platform-to-Business Regulation and national implementations (like the German Plattform-Gesetz) add transparency requirements that most non-EU providers ignore entirely. Worth checking if your host even acknowledges your local consumer authority.

In India the Consumer Protection Act 2019 has similar teeth. E-commerce rules 2020 require explicit consent for auto-renewal. I have used this against two domain registrars who tried to bill me without clear notice.

But foreign hosts? Same problem as pablowild. I use Hetzner Singapore for some things. If dispute, where? Singapore courts? German? My local court has no jurisdiction and they know it.

For cheap VPS under $5/month, the TOS is theoretical. The real contract is "don't abuse, pay on time, we stay friends." I've had three providers disappear with my annual payment. TOS didn't help. Spreadsheet of dead companies > spreadsheet of TOS.

BREVITY??? HAVE YOU SEEN THE AUCTION SERVER TOS??? APPENDICES ON APPENDICES!!!

I BOUGHT A DEDICATED SERVER FOR 35 EURO!!! THE TOS SAID "AS-IS"!!! I SAID "YES-PLEASE"!!!

SELFHOSTING IS THE ONLY TOS I TRUST!!! BECAUSE I WROTE IT!!! IN BASH!!!

THIS!!! HALF MY "LIFETIME DEALS" DIED IN 2022!!! LIFETIME OF THE COMPANY NOT MY LIFE!!!

In Italy we have Decreto Legislativo 70/2003 and later EU directives. The "condizioni generali di contratto" must be explicitly accepted, not buried. I've challenged two hosting providers through AGCM (competition authority) and won both times.

But practically? I read TOS for work, not personal. I'm a systems integrator. When I recommend hosting to clients, I need to know what I'm selling them. Contabo's reduction to 4,200 words actually matters: I can read it in a billable hour, explain it to client in another hour. At 12,000 words? I eat the cost or skip them.

Word count is a business cost. More providers should calculate it that way.

Scheduled pessimist checking in. I read TOS for backup and data portability clauses. Everything else is noise.

Tested: Hetzner Storage Box to Contabo S3. Worked. Tested: Contabo S3 to Wasabi. Worked. Tested: OVHcloud object storage to anything? Good luck. Their egress pricing structure is in TOS appendix C, cross-referenced to a PDF that moved in 2021.

I don't care about arbitration. I care whether I can get my data out when the TOS changes or the company dies. Which is why I test restores. From three providers. Quarterly.

TOS reading without restore testing is theater.

San Francisco perspective: I read TOS for incident response and security notification terms. Who do they tell, how fast, what format.

Hetzner: 72 hours for personal data breach, email, clear. OVHcloud: "without undue delay" which legally means 72 hours but practically means whenever they feel like it. Contabo: "as required by law" which is technically correct and maximally unhelpful.

I also check if they promise to tell ME about breaches affecting MY data, or only breaches affecting THEIR systems. Subtle difference. AWS gets this right in their DPA. Many don't.

The spreadsheet is cute. I have a checklist. Different profession, same paranoia.

Toronto here. I read TOS for SLA definitions. "99.9% uptime" means nothing without: measured over what period, from which endpoints, excluding what maintenance, with what credit formula.

Contabo's old TOS had 99.9% monthly with 5% credit per hour down, capped at monthly fee. Their new TOS? Same numbers, but "excluding scheduled maintenance, force majeure, and upstream provider issues." That third exclusion is... generous. Their upstream is Cogent and Telia. Those have issues.

I don't expect providers to eat everything. I expect them to say clearly what they eat. Most don't.

BGP perspective: I read TOS for IP-related clauses. Can I announce my own PI space? Can I get BGP session? What are the filtering policies? Can they revoke IP for "abuse" without definition?

Hetzner: yes, yes, standard IRR/RPKI, abuse defined in AUP. Clear.
OVHcloud: yes, yes, yes, "abuse at our sole discretion." Vague.
Contabo: no, no, n/a, n/a. Not their market.

For a network engineer, TOS is technical documentation. The rest is for lawyers. I am not lawyer. I am BGP dreamer. Autonomous systems are people too, but only Hetzner https://www.hetzner.com treats mine with respect.

Rotterdam. Networks, mostly. I agree with engzur on the IP clauses, and add: IPv6 policy. Some providers delegate a /64, some a /56, some "one address per server" which is useless.

Hetzner: /64 standard, /56 on request. In writing. In TOS-adjacent FAQ at minimum.
Contabo: /64, no mention of /56, but at least the /64 is stable.
OVHcloud: "IPv6 available" with no prefix size stated. I had to open ticket. Took 4 days. Answer: /128 per server. For a VPS. Ridiculous.

This is why I read before buying. Not because I fear arbitration. Because I fear /128.

São Paulo. Café e cache invalidation, os dois maiores problemas. E TOS em português? Não existe.

I read in English because I must. But my clients? They click "aceito" without reading. Brazilian law says contract must be in Portuguese if consumer is in Brazil. Every foreign host violates this. Every one.

I tell clients: "You have 7 days to cancel under CDC. Use it. Test everything. Read nothing, because it's not even legal language for you."

The TOS is theater for most of world. EU and US write, everyone else clicks.