Privacy policy
Last updated 4 October 2026
HostingPickers ("we", "us") runs hostingpickers.com, a site for comparing hosting plans. You can use the whole site without an account and without telling us who you are. This policy explains the little we do collect.
What we collect
- An anonymous visitor id. A random id in a cookie (
vid), so we can count visitors and clicks and limit abuse. It is not linked to your name, email or IP address. - Your settings. Cookies that remember your currency (
cur) and whether affiliate links are on (aff). - Clicks to providers. When you follow a link to a provider we record which plan or provider, which page it was on, your country (as reported by our network provider, Cloudflare), your currency and the anonymous visitor id.
- How the site is used. Simple events such as adding a plan to the comparison, changing currency or opening the assistant, with the same anonymous id and country. We do not use Google Analytics or advertising trackers of our own.
- Hosting assistant questions. What you type into the AI hosting assistant is sent to Google's Gemini service to generate an answer. We keep the first 120 characters of each question to improve the assistant. Please do not type personal information there.
- Messages you send us. Your name, email and message when you use the contact form, and what you write when you report a wrong price.
- Server logs. Like almost every website, our web server records requests (including IP address and browser type) to keep the site running and secure. These logs are deleted automatically after 14 days.
We do not sell personal information, and we do not collect payment details: you buy hosting on the provider's own site.
Affiliate links and partner tracking
Some links to providers are affiliate links (see our affiliate disclosure). When you follow one, the provider or its affiliate network may set its own cookies so it can credit us if you buy. We pass a random click id with the link, never your name or email.
Our pages also load a tracking script from our affiliate network, impact.com, which records page views and clicks on links to its advertisers. Data it captures may be shared with those advertisers. impact.com's privacy policy explains how it uses this data.
You can turn affiliate links off at any time with the switch in the site footer or on the disclosure page. Links then go to the provider's normal page with no affiliate tracking.
Who processes data for us
- Cloudflare: delivers and protects the site.
- Google (Gemini): answers questions in the hosting assistant.
- impact.com: affiliate tracking, as described above.
- Hosting providers and their affiliate programs: when you click through to them.
How long we keep it
Click and usage records are kept so we can see trends over time and are not linked to you personally. Messages are kept as long as needed to answer and follow up. You can ask us to delete a message you sent at any time.
Cookies
Our own cookies are the visitor id and your settings described above; none are used for advertising. Affiliate partners may set their own cookies when you follow an affiliate link or when their script runs. You can block or delete cookies in your browser; the site keeps working without them.
Your rights
Depending on where you live (for example under the GDPR in the EU and UK), you may have the right to access, correct or delete personal data we hold about you, or to object to how we use it. To make a request, use the contact form and choose "Privacy request".
Children
The site is not aimed at children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect their personal information.
Changes
If we change this policy we will update it here and change the date at the top.