Terms of use

In two sentences

PAL is a free reading journal, run by a private individual. You remain the owner of everything you write in it, you choose who can see it, and you can take it all with you or erase it all whenever you want.

1. What these terms cover

These terms govern the use of the PAL website and its mobile app. Creating an account means accepting them. They apply together with the privacy policy, which is part of them, and the legal notice states who publishes the service.

2. The service

PAL lets you keep your library, rate and review what you read, save quotes, and follow the reading of people you choose. It is free, without advertising, and provided as is: it is run in spare time, may change, be interrupted or stop. No availability is guaranteed.

Information about books — titles, authors, covers, summaries — comes from third-party sources and may contain errors.

3. Your account

• You must be at least 15 to create an account — the age from which, in France, you can consent on your own to the processing of your data.
• An account is personal. You keep its password to yourself, and you are responsible for what is written from it.
• You can delete it yourself at any time, without asking and without delay, from Settings. Deletion is immediate and permanent.

4. What you publish belongs to you

Your reviews, ratings, saved quotes, cover photos and messages remain yours. You only grant PAL the right to store them and show them to the people you allow — which is what the service needs to work, and nothing more. None of this content is sold, transferred, used for advertising or used to train anything.

Your library is private by default. It only becomes visible to the people who follow you, and only if you have made your profile public.

By publishing, you confirm you have the right to do so. For quotes, French law allows the short quotation of a work, provided its author and source are given — which PAL does automatically by attaching them to the book. Copying whole pages, or most of a work, goes beyond that.

5. What has no place here

• Unlawful content: hateful, abusive, defamatory, threatening, harassing, pornographic, or harmful to a minor.
• Other people’s personal data published without their consent.
• Infringement — reproducing a work beyond short quotation.
• Any attempt to harm the service: getting around access rules, scraping content automatically, overloading the servers, impersonating someone else.

6. Reporting content

PAL does not review content before publication: the publisher acts as a host within the meaning of article 6-I-2 of the French law on confidence in the digital economy (LCEN). It can therefore only remove what is reported to it.

To report content, write to baptiste.dile@gmail.com saying where it is — the book and the person concerned — and why it seems unlawful to you. Content that is manifestly unlawful is removed as soon as possible after it is reported.

You can also, at any time and without going through us, stop following someone: their reading and their messages then disappear from your view.

7. Suspension

If these rules are breached, the publisher may remove the content in question and, if necessary, suspend or close the account. Except in an emergency or a case of manifest unlawfulness, you are told by email beforehand.

8. Liability

PAL is a personal, free service. The publisher cannot be held liable for content published by users, for errors in third-party catalogues, or for an interruption of the service. It is, however, answerable for its own failings, under ordinary law.

Your data is not backed up for you beyond what ordinary hosting does. If your library matters to you, export it from time to time from Settings, on the website.

9. Changes to these terms

These terms may change; the date at the top of the page changes with them. An important change will be announced by email. Continuing to use PAL afterwards means accepting it; otherwise, you can delete your account.

10. Governing law

These terms are governed by French law. In case of dispute, an amicable solution is sought first by writing to the address above; failing that, the French courts have jurisdiction.