Terms of use and sale (merchants)

1. Purpose and scope

These general terms of use and sale (the “Terms”) govern access to and use of the Maleda service (the “Service”), published by MALEDA SAS, SAS, whose registered office is at 17 rue de la caserne, 57710 Aumetz, France (the “Publisher” or “Maleda”), and the purchase of the related subscriptions.

They apply to anyone who creates an account or subscribes for their business (the “Merchant”). The Merchant declares that they act exclusively in a professional capacity, for the purposes of their commercial, craft, professional or agricultural activity. The Service is not intended for consumers.

The Terms comprise this document, the data processing agreement (DPA), the privacy policy and the cookie policy. If the Merchant takes part in the referral programme, the referral programme terms are added for that participation. They prevail over any other terms of the Merchant, unless the Publisher agrees otherwise in writing.

2. Definitions

• Shop website: the Merchant’s website created by the Service, available at an address of the form name.maleda.eu.
• Merchant area: the secure area where the Merchant manages their website (hours, products, information, photos, bookings, options, subscription).
• End customers: people who visit the Shop website, book or order there, or subscribe to its notifications.
• Options: the optional paid features (booking calendar — including services and several people —, deposit, last-minute, order and pick-up, social networks, etc.), which can be turned on and off from the Merchant area.
• Assistant: the feature that turns a written or spoken request from the Merchant into proposed changes to their website.
• Paid period: the monthly or annual period for which the Merchant has paid the price.

3. Account and access

Access to the Merchant area is passwordless: through a one-time link and code sent by e-mail, or through Google sign-in when it is offered. The Merchant provides an e-mail address that they alone use and keeps it under their control: anyone with access to that mailbox can access the account.

When signing up, the Merchant provides accurate and complete information (business name, address, telephone, business number: SIRET, VAT number or establishment authorisation depending on the country) and keeps it up to date. The Publisher verifies the business’s address and the existence of the company against public sources (“Verification of the address and the company, country and language” article) and may refuse or suspend a registration whose details are inconsistent.

By signing up, the Merchant accepts the Terms. The accepted version (2026-10-13) and the date of acceptance are recorded. The Merchant is responsible for all actions taken from their account and informs the Publisher without delay of any unauthorised use.

Each subscription covers one business. A Merchant who runs several businesses takes out one subscription per business.

4. Verification of the address and the company, country and language

Address. The business’s address is verified at sign-up and whenever it is changed, against public sources: the Base Adresse Nationale for addresses in France, and the Photon service (based on OpenStreetMap data) for other countries. The verification confirms that the address exists and provides its country and geographic coordinates.

Company. The existence of the company is verified against official registers: the business directory (SIRENE database) for French companies, and the European Commission’s VIES service for European VAT numbers. These checks are automated; they are neither a certification nor a guarantee, and do not relieve the Merchant of its obligations. An address or company that cannot be verified, or whose details are inconsistent, may delay or prevent publication of the site, or lead to suspension of the account (“Suspension” article).

Country and price. The price depends on the country of the business’s verified address, not on the country you browse from or your browser’s language (“Offer, options and prices” article). A Merchant who moves to another country updates the business’s address; once the new address is verified, the price is recalculated from the new country’s price list. The new price applies from the next due date of the subscription, unless otherwise shown when the change is made; it is communicated to the Merchant before it applies, and the Merchant may cancel before that date.

Language. The language of the business’s website is deduced from its address (its country). Visitors see the site in their own language thanks to the translation provided by the Service.

The data sent to these public services is limited to the business’s address and business number (see the privacy policy).

5. Description of the Service

For each subscription, the Service includes:

• a website for the business, on a subdomain, in the language deduced from the business’s address and translated for visitors into the supported languages;
• a listing of the business in the Maleda directory (search by trade, city, “near me”);
• the Merchant area (hours, absences, products, information, photos, a royalty-free cover photo);
• the “bell”: notifications sent to visitors who subscribe to them from their browser;
• the Assistant, within the quotas stated below;
• the Options that the Merchant has turned on.

Until the first payment has been confirmed, the website remains an unpublished preview. The sample products shown at creation are labelled as such and must be replaced by the Merchant.

The Service evolves: the Publisher may add, change or remove features, without substantially reducing the features paid for by the Merchant during the Paid period.

6. Offer, options and prices

Maleda offers a single base plan and Options. Prices depend on the country of the business’s verified address: they are set per country, in proportion to the local price level (Eurostat index), and updated regularly. The billing currency is the Merchant’s choice, among those offered at sign-up: the country’s price is then expressed in the chosen currency, at the conversion rate applied by Maleda and displayed before payment. If the Merchant changes its address to another country, the price is recalculated (“Verification of the address and the company, country and language” article).

The applicable price is the one displayed at sign-up and on the pricing page, summarised before payment. The amount is always recalculated by our servers from the price list of the country of the business’s verified address; it does not depend on what your browser displays.

Billing is monthly or annual, at the Merchant’s choice. With annual billing, twelve months are billed at the price of ten.

Taxes. Displayed and invoiced prices include all taxes: the amount shown is the amount paid. The invoice states, where applicable, the VAT due according to the situation of Maleda and of the Merchant.

The Publisher may change its prices. Any increase is notified to the Merchant at least 30 days in advance and applies only from the next renewal; a Merchant who does not accept it may cancel before that date.

7. Subscription, payment and invoicing

The subscription is paid online through Stripe Payments Europe, Ltd. (“Stripe”), the payment service provider. The Publisher neither receives nor stores card numbers: it keeps only the payment status and Stripe’s customer and subscription identifiers.

The subscription is paid in advance and renews automatically at the end of each Paid period, for the same duration, at the price then in force, until it is cancelled.

When the Merchant turns an Option on or off during a period, the subscription amount is adjusted: the adjustment is calculated by Stripe pro rata for the remaining period. Data linked to a removed Option (for example bookings or orders) is kept but no longer appears until the Option is turned on again.

If a payment fails, the Publisher may retry it, inform the Merchant, and then suspend the Service (“Suspension” article). Sums owed remain payable.

Invoices are made available electronically. [TO BE COMPLETED: state who issues the invoice (Maleda or Stripe) and where the Merchant downloads it]

8. Term, commitment and cancellation

No commitment. The contract is entered into for the Paid period (one month or one year) and renews by tacit renewal. No minimum term is required beyond the current Paid period.

Cancellation by the Merchant. The Merchant may cancel at any time from their Merchant area (or by writing to contact@maleda.eu). Cancellation takes effect at the end of the Paid period: the Service remains fully available until then, after which the website is unpublished and the subscription stops, with no further billing.

No refund of the current period. The price of the current Paid period remains due to the Publisher: it is neither refunded nor calculated pro rata, and cancellation is not retroactive. This rule applies without prejudice to the rights the Merchant has under the law (“Withdrawal” article) and to any refund granted for a breach by the Publisher.

Termination by the Publisher. The Publisher may terminate the contract, after a notice to remedy left without effect for 15 days, if the Merchant breaches the Terms; immediately in the event of a serious breach (illegal content, fraud, security breach, persistent non-payment). Termination for any other reason takes effect at the end of the Paid period, with 30 days’ notice.

After the contract ends. The data of the Merchant and its customers is returned on request and then deleted within 30 days, unless a legal retention obligation applies (see the data processing agreement). The Merchant may subscribe again at any time; its former website address may then have been assigned to another business.

9. Withdrawal

The Service is intended for professional use and the right of withdrawal provided for consumers does not, in principle, apply to the Merchant.

However, where the contract is concluded at a distance with a Merchant who employs five employees or fewer and the subject of the contract is outside the scope of its main activity, the law grants it a 14-day right of withdrawal from the conclusion of the contract (Articles L. 221-3 and L. 221-18 of the French Consumer Code). The Merchant exercises it by a clear statement sent to contact@maleda.eu.

A Merchant who expressly asks for the Service to start before the end of this period (checkbox at sign-up) and then withdraws pays for the part of the Service already provided up to the withdrawal, in proportion to the subscription price (Article L. 221-25 of the French Consumer Code). The remainder is refunded within 14 days of the withdrawal, by the payment method used.

This article applies without prejudice to the mandatory rules of the Merchant’s country.

10. Suspension

The Publisher may suspend all or part of the Service (unpublishing the website, blocking the Merchant area):

• in the event of non-payment, after informing the Merchant;
• in the event of manifestly illegal content or content that breaches the Terms, reported or noticed;
• in the event of a breach of the Service’s security or fraudulent use;
• at the request of a competent authority.

Suspension is proportionate to its reason and lifted as soon as the reason disappears. The Publisher informs the Merchant, with the reasons for its decision, unless the law or an authority forbids it. The Merchant may challenge the decision by writing to contact@maleda.eu. Suspension does not suspend billing when it is due to a breach by the Merchant.

11. Content and Merchant’s responsibility

The Merchant is solely responsible for the content that it publishes or has published on its website (texts, prices, hours, photos, products, information, posts on social networks) and for its business towards its customers. In particular, it undertakes to:

• publish accurate and up-to-date information: address, telephone, opening hours, prices (stated including taxes to consumers where the law requires it), product availability;
• enter the allergens and other mandatory particulars of its products itself. The Publisher does not generate, verify or guarantee any allergen information: the Merchant remains bound, in its country, by its consumer information obligations (Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 and national rules);
• hold all rights in the photos and texts it uploads (copyright, personality rights, trademarks);
• publish no content that is illegal, misleading, discriminatory, hateful or that infringes third-party rights;
• comply with the rules applicable to its business (authorisations, hygiene, regulated trades, labelling, advertising, sales and promotions);
• inform its customers as the law requires (identity, prices, terms of sale, statutory guarantees, consumer mediation) and make the legal information of its business available to them: a “Legal information” page is generated automatically on its website from the details it has entered, and it is for the Merchant to supplement it with recourse to a consumer mediator where its national law requires it;
• comply with data protection law towards its customers (see “Personal data” article).

The Merchant indemnifies the Publisher against any third-party claim linked to its content or business, and reimburses the resulting damages and costs (including reasonable and documented legal fees), except in the event of the Publisher’s fault.

Google reviews that may be displayed on a website come from Google; they are not copied into the database and their content does not bind the Publisher.

Uploaded photos are re-encoded to the WebP format and stripped of their metadata (including GPS position). They are limited to 6 MB per file.

12. Artificial-intelligence assistant

What the Assistant does. The Merchant writes or dictates a request (for example “no more croissants” or “closed Thursday afternoon”). The Assistant turns it into proposed changes to the website: marking a product sold out or back in stock, changing a price, adding a closure. It does not write allergens and does not provide legal, medical, tax or accounting advice.

Information about the AI. Depending on the Service’s configuration, the Assistant uses simple built-in rules or an artificial-intelligence model provided by Anthropic (Claude model). In the latter case, the Merchant is interacting with an AI system, and the text of the request (500 characters at most), today’s date and the list of the names of its products are sent to that provider to produce the answer. No customer data is sent.

Human control. The Assistant only proposes. Simple, reversible changes (marking a product sold out or back in stock) apply immediately and can be undone with one click; the others (prices, closures) take effect only after the Merchant’s explicit confirmation. The Merchant checks every result: it is for the Merchant to verify that the displayed change is correct before confirming it.

Limits. The answers of an AI system may be incomplete or wrong. The Publisher does not guarantee their accuracy. No decision producing legal effects for any person is taken in an automated way.

Quotas. Use of the Assistant is capped at 300 requests per month per business (a cap that the Publisher may change). Beyond it, the Assistant replies that the cap has been reached; the Merchant area remains usable by hand. The text of requests is not kept by Maleda: only the number of requests in the month is kept.

Voice dictation. Dictation uses the speech recognition of the Merchant’s browser: the audio is processed by the browser’s publisher under its own terms, not by Maleda.

13. Bookings, orders and deposits (Stripe Connect)

The booking, order and deposit Options are tools made available to the Merchant. The contract of sale or service is concluded between the Merchant and its customer: Maleda is not a party to it and is not responsible for the performance of the service, the quality of the products or the resulting disputes.

Deposit. When the Merchant requires a deposit at booking, the customer pays it online, through Stripe Connect, for the benefit of the Merchant’s Stripe account: Stripe transfers the funds to that account. Maleda does not collect deposits on the Merchant’s behalf, does not keep the funds and derives no revenue from them; payments are processed by Stripe alone. [TO BE COMPLETED: confirm that Maleda takes no commission on deposits, or state the amount of any commission]

To receive deposits, the Merchant opens and links a Stripe account: it accepts Stripe’s terms applicable to connected accounts, goes through Stripe’s identity checks and bears the Stripe payment fees provided for in its contract. Maleda does not control these terms and is not responsible for Stripe’s decisions.

Refund of the deposit. The following rules are applied by the Service and repeated in the terms shown to customers:

• appointment cancelled by the Merchant: the deposit is refunded in full;
• cancellation by the customer more than 24 hours before the appointment: the deposit is refunded in full;
• cancellation by the customer 24 hours or less before the appointment, or no-show: the deposit is kept by the Merchant.

The Merchant may, on its own initiative and under its own responsibility, refund more. When a refund is due, it is made from the Merchant’s Stripe account, and the Merchant bears its cost and any fees not returned by Stripe.

Pick-up orders. Orders are paid on the spot, at pick-up, between the customer and the Merchant: no order payment is received online by Maleda.

Information to customers. The Merchant gives its customers the information required by law. A template of booking and order terms is displayed on its website (“Legal information” section); it is not personalised legal advice and may be supplemented by the Merchant.

14. Notifications (bell)

The “bell” lets a visitor be notified, from their browser, of the business’s news. Subscription is voluntary and can be withdrawn at any time by the visitor (browser settings). The Merchant sends only messages related to its business (news, last-minute offers, order ready), in reasonable quantity, and refrains from any marketing unrelated to the purpose of the subscription.

15. Social networks (option)

When the Option is turned on, the Merchant links its own Facebook page or professional Instagram account and authorises Maleda to publish on its behalf the content it has written and approved. Access tokens are stored encrypted. The Merchant remains responsible for the posts and for complying with the terms of the network concerned; it may unlink its account at any time from the Merchant area or from the network.

16. Referral programme

Any Merchant, like anyone else, may take part in Maleda’s referral programme: by recommending Maleda with their code or link, they may receive a commission on the subscriptions of the merchants they referred. Taking part is optional and governed by the referral programme terms.

A Merchant who creates their account using a referrer’s link or code is told that a referrer receives a commission calculated on their subscription payments. The referral does not change the price of their subscription, and the referrer has access neither to their identity nor to their data: the referrer sees only anonymised statistics (trade, city, date, status, amount).

The referral code is taken into account only when the account is created: it cannot be added afterwards.

17. Availability, maintenance and backups

The Publisher uses reasonable means to keep the Service continuously accessible but is bound only by an obligation of means. The Service may be interrupted for maintenance, updates or security reasons; the Publisher endeavours to give advance notice when the interruption is planned and foreseeable. [TO BE COMPLETED: any availability target, for example 99% per month, and remedies if it is not met]

The database is backed up daily and backups are kept for 14 days. The Merchant is still encouraged to keep a copy of its important content.

The Service depends on third-party providers (hosting, DNS and content delivery network, payment, e-mail sending, maps). The Publisher is not responsible for their failures, unless the law provides otherwise.

18. Limitation of liability

The Publisher is liable, under ordinary law, for direct damage caused by a breach of its obligations. Its liability is, however, limited, for all damage combined, to the amount actually paid by the Merchant during the 12 months preceding the event giving rise to liability.

The Publisher is not liable for indirect damage (loss of revenue, customers, reputation, or data not backed up by the Merchant), for the content and information published by Merchants (prices, hours, allergens, availability, photos), for results of the Assistant not verified by the Merchant, for the service provided by the Merchant to its customers, or for third-party services (Stripe, Google, e-mail, map and browser providers).

No clause limits the Publisher’s liability in the event of gross negligence or wilful misconduct, personal injury, or where the law forbids it.

The Merchant may rely on a breach by the Publisher only after informing it in writing and giving it a reasonable period to remedy it.

19. Intellectual property

The Publisher keeps all rights in the Service: software, templates, brand, texts, illustrations. It grants the Merchant, for the duration of the subscription, a personal, non-exclusive and non-transferable right to use the Service for its business.

The Merchant remains the holder of the rights in its content. It grants the Publisher the right to host it, reproduce it, adapt it technically (resizing, re-encoding) and display it on its website, in the directory and in notifications, solely for the purposes of the Service and for its duration.

The cover photos offered by the Service are royalty-free; their authors and licences are listed in the legal notice. The illustrations of sample products belong to the Publisher and may be used only on the Merchant’s website.

20. Personal data

For Merchants’ data (account, invoicing, security, directory), Maleda is the controller: see the privacy policy.

For the data of its customers (bookings, orders, bell subscribers), the Merchant is the controller and Maleda is its processor, under the terms of the data processing agreement, which forms part of the Terms. The Merchant gives its instructions through its use of the Service and by writing to contact@maleda.eu.

The Merchant gives its customers the information required by Articles 13 and 14 of the GDPR. The “Legal information” text of its website and Maleda’s privacy policy can help it do so, without relieving it of the obligation.

The data used to verify the address and the company, and that of the referral programme, are processed by Maleda as controller (see the privacy policy). Cookies and local storage are described in the cookie policy.

21. Changes to the Terms

The Publisher may change the Terms, in particular to reflect the evolution of the Service or of the law. Merchants are notified by e-mail and on the Service at least 30 days before the change takes effect, except for a change required by law or necessary for security, which applies immediately.

A Merchant who does not accept the change may cancel before it takes effect: cancellation takes effect at the end of the Paid period, free of charge. If it continues to use the Service after the effective date, it is deemed to accept the new version, whose number and date appear at the top of the document.

22. Governing law, jurisdiction and mediation

The Terms are governed by French law. Mandatory provisions of the Merchant’s country, where they are imposed on it, remain applicable.

The parties first seek an amicable solution: write to contact@maleda.eu. Failing that, any dispute relating to the Terms falls under the competent courts of the place where the publisher has its registered office.

The Service is intended exclusively for professionals: consumer mediation does not apply to this contract. The parties first seek an amicable solution.

23. Language and general provisions

The Terms are written in French, which is the reference version. Translations are provided for information only; if there is any difference, the French version prevails.

If a clause is held void, the others remain in force. Failure to exercise a right is not a waiver. The Publisher may assign the contract to a company taking over the Service, informing the Merchant. The Publisher’s computer records are evidence, unless proven otherwise, of exchanges, acceptances and payments.