Terms and Conditions

PBA Community Rules, Conditions & Etiquette and Privacy Guidelines (“Community Rules”)

Thank you for your interest in the PBA Community - which is the Professional Beauty Association’s ("PBA") online discussion forums ("PBA Community").  The PBA Community exists to foster discussion between our members about various industry topics that are important to PBA members, and to permit PBA members to join with other members in discussion of topics of their choosing.

To ensure a civil forum community, users are required to follow certain rules.  These rules are specifically applicable to use of the PBA Community.  The Community Rules apply to you in addition to the PBA Website Terms of Use, and may be found via this hyperlink https://www.probeauty.org/terms-of-use - except to the extent the Terms of Use are inconsistent with the Community Rules.

Your Use Indicates Your Agreement with the Community Rules

By joining and participating in the PBA Community, you agree that you have read and you agree to be bound by the following rules, conditions and guidelines. You further agree that all information you provide in your registration is accurate. If you do not agree with these terms, you should not register or participate in the PBA Community.

You also agree to reserve discussions, shared files, and content to those best suited for the PBA Community. The PBA Community is a great resource to solicit the advice of your peers, benefit from your peers experience, and participate in an ongoing conversation. Questions should be directed to our member services department via the Contact Us link on this site.

Please take a moment to acquaint yourself with these important guidelines.  If you have questions, contact the member services department.  In order to preserve an environment that encourages both civil and fruitful dialogue, PBA reserves the right to suspend or terminate membership in this community for anyone who violate these rules.

Principles of PBA Community

The PBA Community consists of open online forums intended for use by the PBA membership.  The forums are both PBA staff moderated and unmoderated free-form online discussions led by the membership. You might want to spend some time following discussions ("lurking") before you participate. Discussions are more rewarding when users post messages relating to the discussion topic and avoid repetitive or excessively lengthy posts.

The Rules

  • Respect others. Focus on the content of posts and not on the people making them. Please extend the benefit of the doubt to newer guests and members; there is no such thing as a stupid question.
  • Respect the purpose of the community. Use the community to share successes, challenges, constructive feedback, questions, and goals instead of products or services. Job posts and job advertisements or gathering interest or candidates for paying opportunities are not permitted in the community. If you have found a product or service helpful, or have an opportunity that you feel would be relevant for another member based on their question or discussion posts please share your experience with the group in a respectful way (that is not promotional) or encourage individuals to reach out to you for more information or you may reach out via private message. We do ask that you are mindful of using the private message (reply to sender) functionality, as we have received complaints for over promotion or unnecessary communications via private message in the past.
  • Use caution when discussing products. Information posted on the discussion groups and in the libraries is available for all to see, and comments are subject to libel, slander, and antitrust laws.
  • Respect the law. All defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, or illegal materials are strictly prohibited.  Do not post anything that you would not want the world to see or that you would not want anyone to know came from you.
  • Respect intellectual property. Post content that you have personally created or have permission to use and have properly attributed to the content creator.
  • When posting items in our collaborative environment, please indicate if the item is not available for reuse. Please contact the owner of any material if you would like to reuse it.
  • Post your message or documents only to the most appropriate communities. This helps ensure all messages receive the best response by eliminating "noise."

Discussion Group Etiquette

  • State concisely and clearly the topic of your comments in the subject line. This allows members to respond more appropriately to your posting and makes it easier for members to search the archives by subject.
  • Send messages such as "thanks for the information" or "me, too" to individuals, not to the entire list. Do this by using the "Reply to Sender" link in every message.
  • Do not send administrative messages, such as “remove me from the list,” to the group. Instead, use the PBA interface to change your settings or to remove yourself from a list. If you are changing email addresses, you do not need to remove yourself from the list and rejoin under your new email address. Simply change your settings.

Users Are Legally Responsible and Liable for Posts

You agree that you are fully responsible and legally liable for the content that you post or made through the use of your name and password.  If your password is lost, you may generate a new password by clicking the "Lost Password" button in the forum.  If your password is stolen, contact PBA by e-mail.

The Right to Move, Edit, or Delete Posts

PBA believes in free expression and active and open debate.  PBA does, however, expect members of the PBA Community to follow rules that protect other users and persons from the invasion of their rights and privacy. PBA has no obligation to monitor the forums, or any submissions or other materials that you or other third parties transmit or post in the PBA Community. PBA does, however, have the right, but not the obligation, to monitor the PBA Community and the materials you transmit or post.  Should you violate or allow another person to use your account to violate any of the following rules, PBA reserves the right to move, edit, or delete your post or discussion thread:

  • Posts that are defamatory, libelous, unnecessarily antagonistic, or an invasion of privacy or violation of the rights of another user, person, or party.
  • Posts that are obscene, abusive, harassing, threatening, off-topic, unintelligible, or inappropriate, as determined by the moderators of PBA Community.
  • Posts that are in violation of copyright, trademark, or intellectual property laws, as determined by the moderators of PBA Community. Simply because material is available on the Internet does not mean it is in the public domain; most materials are protected by law. In addition, simply including attribution does not permit users to post copyrighted materials on the forum; only extremely short excerpts or hyperlinks are generally permitted.
  • Posts in violation of local, state, United States or international law.
  • Posts promoting, soliciting for, advertising for, referring to, or hyperlinking to commercial products, programs, surveys or services; including contests, chain letters, pyramid schemes, or commercial enterprises. PBA Community is designed for discussion and debate.
  • Posts that are submitted repetitively, without any bearing on the discussion topic, or are otherwise deliberately disrupting the forums ("spamming").
  • Posts that attempt to impersonate or fraudulently represent another user, person, or party.
  • Posts that are in a language other than English.
  • Posts that include viruses, "Trojan Horses," or any other contaminating or destructive feature that may damage another person's computer.
  • Posts that are determined, solely by PBA and/or third parties employed or directed by PBA, to be objectionable.

PBA Community is a privately-held, privately-maintained forum.  PBA has the right, but not the obligation, to remove any material from the forum that PBA, in its sole discretion, believes is not appropriate.

Intellectual Property Rights and Copyright

  • PBA is the owner of all right and title or is a licensee of all material (and the intellectual property therein) published in the PBA Community (including the design, arrangement and look and feel). All materials and intellectual property on the PBA Community are protected by the intellectual property laws and treaties enacted around the world.  PBA reserves all such rights in its intellectual property and the PBA Community.
  • “Pro Beauty,” “PBA” and any related names and logos are some of our registered trademarks. Nothing contained in this site shall give by implication or otherwise any right or license to anyone to use any of our trademarked work or related logos.
  • By posting or participating in any discussion, information or materials on this site (“Contributions”), you grant PBA a non-exclusive, perpetual, fully-paid up, royalty-free license to use your Contributions for PBA’s businesses purposes.
  • You may print off one copy, and may download extracts, of any page(s) from PBA Community for your personal reference and you may draw the attention of others within your organization to material posted in the PBA Community.
  • You must not modify the paper or digital copies of any materials you have printed off or downloaded in any way, and you must not use any illustrations, photographs, video or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text.
  • Our status (and that of any identified contributors) as the authors of material in the PBA Community must always be acknowledged.
  • You must not use any part of the materials in the PBA Community for commercial purposes without obtaining a license to do so from PBA or our licensors.
  • If you print off, copy or download any materials in the PBA Community in breach of these Community Rules, your right to participate in the PBA Community will cease immediately and you must, at our option, return or destroy any copies of the materials you have made.

Reliance on information posted

  • Commentary and other materials posted in the PBA Community are not intended to amount to advice on which reliance should be placed. PBA, therefore, disclaim all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on such materials by any visitor to the PBA Community, or by anyone who may be informed of any of its contents.
  • These pages contain general information only. Nothing in these pages constitutes legal advice. You should consult a suitably qualified lawyer on any specific legal problem or matter.
  • PBA makes no warranties, representations or undertakings about: any of the content of the PBA Community (including, without limitation, any as to the quality, accuracy, completeness or fitness for any particular purpose of such content); or any content of any other PBA site referred to or accessed by hypertext link through this PBA site.

The Right to Remove Users

Every message in the PBA Community is automatically labeled with your user name ("login name"). PBA reserves the right, in our sole discretion, to remove the posting privileges and/or eject a user permanently from the discussion forum for:

  • Violating the posting rules set forth in the previous section
  • Impersonating or fraudulently representing another user, person, or party
  • Theft or fraudulent use of another user's account or password
  • Using an invalid or outdated e-mail address in one's forum preferences
  • Registering a new account with a free e-mail address
  • Using words or phrases as part of one's login name that are determined by PBA staff to be obscene, threatening, or otherwise offensive
  • Registering more than one login name at a time
  • Violating any portion of the terms of service set forth herein

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. PBA looks forward to seeing you in the forum.

Privacy Policy

Any personal information you provide to PBA including and similar to your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address will not be released, sold, or rented to any entities or individuals outside of our organization except as noted below.

With Whom Does PBA Share the Personal Information that PBA Collects Through This Site:

Our Service Providers

PBA may share your personal information with companies (including our affiliates) that perform services on our behalf, for example, companies that help process credit card payments.  Our service providers are required by contract to protect the confidentiality of the personal information that PBA shares with them and to use it only to provide specific services on our behalf.

Business Transfers

Your personal information may be transferred to another entity (either an affiliated entity or an unrelated third party) in connection with a merger, reorganization, dissolution or similar corporate event. If such a transfer were ever to occur, the acquiring entity’s use of your personal information will still be subject to this Privacy Policy.

Government and Legal Disclosures

PBA may disclose the personal information that PBA collects through this Site, when PBA, in good faith, believes disclosure is appropriate to comply with the law (or a court order or subpoena); to prevent or investigate a possible crime, such as fraud or identity theft; to enforce our Community Rules and Website Terms of Use or other agreements that govern your use of this Site; or to protect the rights, property or safety of our company, our users, or others.

External Sites

PBA is not responsible for the content of external internet sites. You are advised to read the privacy policy of external sites before disclosing any personal information.

Cookies

A "cookie" is a small data text file that is placed in your browser and allows PBA to recognize you each time you visit this site (personalization, etc). Cookies themselves do not contain any personal information, and PBA does not use cookies to collect personal information. Cookies may also be used by third-party content providers such as newsfeeds.

Remember The Risks Whenever You Use The Internet

While PBA will do its best to protect your personal information, PBA cannot guarantee the security of any information that you transmit to PBA and you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of any passwords or other account information. In addition, other Internet sites or services that may be accessible through the PBA Community have separate data and privacy practices independent of us, and therefore PBA disclaim any responsibility or liability for their policies or actions.  Please contact those vendors and others directly if you have any questions about their privacy policies.  For any other information please contact PBA using the Contact PBA page.