Terms and Conditions

This page (together with the policies referred to on it) tells you the terms of use on which you may make use of our website www.psoriasis-association.org.uk (“our site”), whether as a guest or a registered user. Please read these terms of use carefully before you start to use the site. By using our site, you indicate that you accept these terms of use and that you agree to abide by them. If you do not agree to these terms of use, please refrain from using our site.

Disclaimer

The Psoriasis Association provides information and support for those affected by psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis. This website, forum, and other social media platforms are intended to provide general information only and, as such, should not be considered as a substitute for professional advice. It is your responsibility to seek advice from a healthcare practitioner or other professional where appropriate.

The Psoriasis Association does not guarantee that the website will be uninterrupted or error free, or that the website or your use of it will be free of viruses or harmful material. You are responsible for ensuring that your computer is suitable to use the website.

1 Information About Us
1.1 www.psoriasis-association.org.uk is a site operated by the Psoriasis Association (“we, us, our”). We are registered in England and Wales under charity number 257414 and Scotland SC039886. Our registered office address is Dick Coles House, 2 Queensbridge, Northampton, NN4 7BF.

 2 Accessing Our Site
 2.1 Access to our site is permitted on a temporary basis, and we reserve the right to withdraw or amend the service we provide on our site without notice (see below). Whilst we endeavour to make sure the site is available 24 hours a day, we will not be liable if for any reason our site is unavailable at any time or for any period.
 2.2 From time to time, we may restrict access to some parts of our site, or our entire site, to users who have registered with us.
 2.3 If you choose, or you are provided with, a user identification code, password or any other piece of information as part of our security procedures, you must treat such information as confidential, and you must not disclose it to any third party. We have the right to disable any user identification code or password, whether chosen by you or allocated by us, at any time, if in our opinion you have failed to comply with any of the provisions of these terms of use.
 2.4 When using our site, you must comply with the provisions of our acceptable use policy as set out in clause [13] below (“Acceptable Use Policy”).
2.5 You are responsible for making all arrangements necessary for you to have access to our site. You are also responsible for ensuring that all persons who access our site through your internet connection are aware of these terms, and that they comply with them.

 3 Intellectual Property Rights
 3.1 We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in our site, and in the material published on it. Those works are protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved.
 3.2 You may print off one copy, and may download extracts, of any page(s) from our site for your personal reference and you may draw the attention of others within your organisation to material posted on our site.
 3.3 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.
 3.4 Our status (and that of any identified contributors) as the authors of material on our site must always be acknowledged.
 3.5 You must not use any part of the materials on our site for commercial purposes without obtaining a licence to do so from us or our licensors.
 3.6 If you print off, copy or download any part of our site in breach of these terms of use, your right to use our site will cease immediately and you must, at our option, return or destroy any copies of the materials you have made.

 4 Reliance On Information Posted
 4.1 Commentary and other materials posted on this site by the Psoriasis Association or any other author are not intended to amount to advice on which reliance should be placed. As stated in the disclaimer, no information on this site is a substitute for advice from a healthcare practitioner or other healthcare professional. We therefore disclaim all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on such materials by any visitor to our site, or by anyone who may be informed of any of its contents. 

 5 Our Site Changes Regularly
 5.1 We aim to update our site regularly, and may change or delete content at any time.  If the need arises, we may suspend access to our site, or close it indefinitely. Any of the material on our site may be out of date at any given time, and we are under no obligation to update such material. We reserve the right to move or delete forum content at our discretion.

 6 Our Liability
 6.1 The material displayed on our site is provided without any guarantees, conditions or warranties as to its accuracy. To the extent permitted by law, we, hereby expressly exclude:
 6.1.1 all conditions, warranties and other terms which might otherwise be implied by statute, common law or the law of equity; and
 6.1.2 any liability for any direct, indirect or consequential loss or damage incurred by any user in connection with our site or in connection with the use, inability to use, or results of the use of our site, any websites linked to it and any materials posted on it, including, without limitation any liability for: (i) loss of income or revenue; (ii) loss of business; (iii) loss of profits or contracts; (iv) loss of anticipated savings; (v) loss of data; (vi) loss of goodwill; (vii) wasted management or office time; and (viii) for any other loss or damage of any kind, however arising and whether caused by tort (including negligence), breach of contract or otherwise, even if foreseeable, provided that this condition shall not prevent claims for loss of or damage to your tangible property or any other claims for direct financial loss that are not excluded by any of the categories set out above.
 6.2 This does not affect our liability for death or personal injury arising from our negligence, nor our liability for fraudulent misrepresentation or misrepresentation as to a fundamental matter, nor any other liability which cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.

 7 Information About You And Your Visits To Our Site
 7.1 We process information about you in accordance with our privacy policy. By using our site, you consent to such processing and you warrant that all data provided by you is accurate.

 8 Uploading Material To Our Site
 8.1 Whenever you make use of a feature that allows you to upload material to our site, or to make contact with other users of our site, you must comply with the content standards set out in our Acceptable Use Policy. You warrant that any such contribution does comply with those standards, and you indemnify us for any breach of that warranty.
 8.2 Any material you upload to our site will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary, and we have the right to use, copy, distribute and disclose to third parties any such material for any purpose. We also have the right to disclose your identity to any third party who is claiming that any material posted or uploaded by you to our site constitutes a violation of their intellectual property rights, or of their right to privacy.
 8.3 We will not be responsible, or liable to any third party, for the content or accuracy of any materials posted by you or any other user of our site.
 8.4 We have the right to remove any material or posting you make on our site if, in our opinion, such material does not comply with the Content Standards in clause [14] below.

 9 Viruses, Hacking And Other Offences
 9.1 You must not misuse our site by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material which is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to our site, the server on which our site is stored or any server, computer or database connected to our site. You must not attack our site via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of service attack.
 9.2 By breaching this provision, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and we will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use our site will cease immediately.
 9.3 We will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a distributed denial-of-service attack, viruses or other technologically harmful material that may infect your computer equipment, computer programs, data or other proprietary material due to your use of our site or to your downloading of any material posted on it, or on any website linked to it.

 10 Linking To Our Site
 10.1 You may link to our home page, provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it, but you must not establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists.
 10.2 You must not establish a link from any website that is not owned by you.
 10.3 Our site must not be framed on any other site. We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice. The website from which you are linking must comply in all respects with the content standards set out in our Acceptable Use Policy.
 10.4 If you wish to make any use of material on our site other than that set out above, please address your request to mail@psoriasis-association.org.uk

 11 Links From Our Site
 11.1 Where our site contains links to other sites and resources provided by third parties, these links are provided for your information only. We have no control over the contents of those sites or resources, and accept no responsibility for them or for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of them.

 12 Acceptable Use Policy
 12.1 This acceptable use policy applies to all users of, and visitors to, our site. Your use of our site means that you accept, and agree to abide by, all the provisions of this policy.
 12.2 You may use our site only for lawful purposes. You may not use our site:
 12.2.1 in any way that breaches any applicable local, national or international law or regulation;
 12.2.2 in any way that is unlawful or fraudulent, or has any unlawful or fraudulent purpose or effect;
 12.2.3 for the purpose of harming or attempting to harm minors in any way;
 12.2.4 to send, knowingly receive, upload, download, use or re-use any material which does not comply with our content standards in clause 14 below;
 12.2.5 to transmit, or procure the sending of, any unsolicited or unauthorised advertising or promotional material or any other form of similar solicitation (spam); or
 12.2.6 to knowingly transmit any data, send or upload any material that contains viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time-bombs, keystroke loggers, spyware, adware or any other harmful programs or similar computer code designed to adversely affect the operation of any computer software or hardware.
 12.3 You also agree not to access without authority, interfere with, damage or disrupt:
 12.3.1 any part of our site;
 12.3.2 any equipment or network on which our site is stored;
 12.3.3 any software used in the provision of our site; or
 12.3.4 any equipment or network or software owned or used by any third party.

 13 Interactive Services
 13.1 We may from time to time provide interactive services on our site, including, without limitation the forum, messaging, bulletin boards, individual fundraising pages, event pages, blogs.
 13.2 We will do our best to assess any possible risks for users (and in particular, for children) from third parties when they use any Interactive Services provided on our site, and we will decide in each case whether it is appropriate to use moderation of the relevant Interactive Service (including what kind of moderation to use) in the light of those risks. However, we are under no obligation to oversee, monitor or moderate any Interactive Service we provide on our site, and we expressly exclude our liability for any loss or damage arising from the use of any Interactive Service by a user in contravention of our content standards, whether the Interactive Service is moderated or not. You are encouraged to contact us at mail@psoriasis-association.org.uk if you become aware of any material which contain objectionable matter or otherwise breaches this Acceptable Use Policy.
 13.4 The use of any of our Interactive Services by a minor is subject to the consent of their parent or guardian. We advise parents who permit their children to use an Interactive Service that it is important that they communicate with their children about their safety online, as moderation is not foolproof. Minors who are using any Interactive Services should be made aware of the potential risks to them.

 14 Content Standards - Interactive Services
 14.1 These content standards apply to any and all material which you contribute to our site (“Contributions”), and to any Interactive Services associated with it.
 14.2 You must comply with the spirit of the following standards as well as the letter. The standards apply to each part of any Contribution as well as to its whole.
 14.3 Contributions must be accurate (where they state facts), be genuinely held (where they state opinions) and comply with applicable law in the UK and in any country from which they are posted.
 14.4 Contributions must not (i) contain any material which is defamatory of any person; (ii) contain any material which is obscene, offensive, hateful or inflammatory; (iii) promote sexually explicit material; (iv) promote violence; (v) promote discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age; (vi) infringe any copyright, database right or trade mark of any other person; (vii) be likely to deceive any person; (viii) be made in breach of any legal duty owed to a third party, such as a contractual duty or a duty of confidence; (ix) promote any illegal activity; (x) be threatening, abusive or invade another’s privacy, or cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety; (xi) be likely to harass, upset, embarrass, alarm or annoy any other person; (xii) be used to impersonate any person, or to misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person; (xiii) give the impression that they emanate from us, if this is not the case; or (xiv) advocate, promote or assist any unlawful act such as (by way of example only) copyright infringement or computer misuse.

We reserve the right to move or delete any Contribution at any time.

 15 Suspension And Termination
 15.1 We will determine, in our discretion, whether there has been a breach of this Acceptable Use Policy through your use of our site. When a breach of this policy has occurred, we may take such action as we deem appropriate. 15.2 Failure to comply with this Acceptable Use Policy constitutes a material breach of the terms upon which you are permitted to use our site, and may result in our taking all or any of the following actions:
 15.2.1 immediate, temporary or permanent withdrawal of your right to use our site;
 15.2.2 immediate, temporary or permanent removal of any posting or material uploaded by you to our site;
 15.2.3 issue of a warning to you;
 15.2.4 legal proceedings against you for reimbursement of all costs on an indemnity basis (including, but not limited to, reasonable administrative and legal costs) resulting from the breach;
 15.2.5 further legal action against you; and/or
 15.2.6 disclosure of such information to law enforcement authorities as we reasonably feel is necessary.
 15.3 We exclude liability for actions taken in response to breaches of our Acceptable Use Policy. The responses described in this policy are not limited, and we may take any other action we reasonably deem appropriate.

 16 Jurisdiction And Applicable Law
 16.1 The English courts will have non-exclusive jurisdiction over any claim arising from, or related to, a visit to our site although we retain the right to bring proceedings against you for breach of these conditions in your country of residence or any other relevant country.
 16.2 These terms of use and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with them or their subject matter or formation (including non-contractual disputes or claims) shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the law of England and Wales.

 17 Trade Marks
 17.1 The “psoriasis” logo is a UK registered design.  

 18 Variations
 18.1 We may revise these terms of use at any time by amending this page. You are expected to check this page from time to time to take notice of any changes we made, as they are binding on you. Some of the provisions contained in these terms of use may also be superseded by provisions or notices published elsewhere on our site.

 19 Your Concerns
 19.1 If you have any concerns about material which appears on our site, please contact mail@psoriasis-association.org.uk
 19.2 Thank you for visiting our site.

Forums

Hello and welcome to the Psoriasis Association Psoteen Forum. Please take a moment to read the following information and guidelines:

• If you sign up to the forums on either of our websites, the Psoriasis Association will have access to the information that you supply during the sign-up process, on your profile, and any content that you post on the forums. We reserve the right to remove forum content and/or disable user profiles at any time. We also reserve the right to preserve, store, share or otherwise use any content posted on the forums, although we will do so anonymously unless required by law. If you delete your forum profile or a post, your details will be held for a short period of time before being safely destroyed, except where we are required to retain it by law.
• No posts in these forums should be taken to represent the views of the Psoriasis Association, and allowing a post to remain on the forums does not mean it is endorsed by the Psoriasis Association.
• These forums will be actively moderated between 9am - 5pm on Monday to Thursday, and between 9am - 4.30pm on Fridays. Any issues that occur outside of these times will be dealt with as quickly as possible once the moderation period begins again.
• Forum users are welcome to share tips for managing psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis from their own experiences. However, please note that these tips should not be used in place of advice from a qualified medical professional. The Psoriasis Association would always advise that you contact your GP, specialist or a relevant healthcare professional for reliable and accurate medical advice. Please note that Psoriasis Association staff are not qualified medical professionals.
• Posts containing any tips or treatment suggestions that the Psoriasis Association is concerned could put the welfare of other forum users at risk will be removed.
• For the safety and wellbeing of our forum users, any posts which offer the sale or giveaway of prescription-only medicines (POMs) will be removed.
• Please be respectful of one another’s views. Insulting and/or abusive language towards other forum users (including racism, sexism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, and transphobia) will not be tolerated. Posts of an offensive nature will be removed, and the offending forum user’s account may be disabled.
• For the welfare of this online community, spamming will not be tolerated and any links to pages that sell products, diets or regimes that claim or imply that they ‘cure’ psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis will be removed. ‘Spamming’ includes posting the same thing numerous times, or on numerous threads. In such cases, the duplicate posts will be removed. The user accounts of persistent spammers will be disabled.
• Forum users may share links to other support groups/pages that may be of interest, but please do so respectfully and do not over-post. Multiple posts will be treated as spam and removed.
• Posts promoting a product that a person is selling themselves will be removed, and if this happens persistently, the individual’s user account will be disabled. Please note, this includes instances where a forum user has declared a vested interest in a product (for example being a shareholder or investor in a company which is marketing a product) and proceeds to post about it on the forums. Such cases will be treated as product promotion, the posts will be removed and the offending user accounts disabled. The Psoriasis Association also reserves the right to remove the posts and disable the accounts of any user whom we have reasonable suspicion to believe may have a vested interest in a product being marketed for psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis, even where no such interest has explicitly been declared.
• We do not allow the sale or giveaway of home UV light equipment on these forums. For safety reasons, we would always advise that UV light treatment is administered in a controlled setting under the supervision of a specialist.
• If you have concerns over any post that you feel may breach these guidelines, please report it. The report button appears next to each individual post – an exclamation mark within a triangle. Reporting a post guarantees that it will be reviewed by a member of Psoriasis Association staff, however it does not mean that the content will automatically be removed.
• The Psoriasis Association reserves the right to remove any post or disable the account of any forum user as it deems necessary.

If you have further questions on how your data is used, please read our full Privacy Policy, or get in touch with mail@psoriasis-association.org.uk