Terms & Conditions

Effective Date: March 2026

1. Introduction & Acceptance of Terms

Welcome to the Herbal Alliance. By accessing or using our public directory (the “Public Directory”) and our private membership portal (the “Private Portal”), you agree to be bound by these Terms & Conditions (“Terms”).

The Herbal Alliance is registered and operates within the Republic of Ireland. If you do not agree to these Terms, or our Community Guidelines and Privacy Policy, you must not use our platform.

2. Eligibility & The “Vetting Promise”

The Herbal Alliance relies on the integrity of its members to maintain a safe, professional environment. During application, members are vetted for qualifications, insurance, and/or Professional Association (PA) registration.

• Ongoing Member Responsibility: You are required to independently notify us immediately if your PA registration lapses, if your insurance expires, if you cease clinical practice, or if any of your professional details change. Failure to notify us may result in account suspension and loss of access.
• Loss of Professional Status: If you are struck off, suspended, or removed from your Professional Association register, your access to the Private Portal and your listing on the Public Directory will be immediately revoked until proof of valid professional practice is re-established.

 

3. Membership Subscriptions, Payments & Refunds

Access to the Private Portal and premium features is provided via a paid subscription (managed via MemberPress and Stripe).

• Business-to-Business (B2B) Service: The Herbal Alliance Private Portal is a professional utility and networking hub designed for practitioners, students, and clinical organisations. By subscribing, you acknowledge that this is a Business-to-Business (B2B) service.
• Immediate Access & No “Cooling-Off” Period: Because a subscription grants immediate digital access to premium resources, proprietary networking tools, and member discounts that can be instantly redeemed, the standard 14-day consumer “cooling-off” period does not apply. All membership fees are strictly non-refundable once digital access is granted.
• Auto-Renewal: Unless stated otherwise at checkout, your subscription will automatically renew at the end of your billing cycle. You may cancel your auto-renewal at any time via your account dashboard; however, no partial refunds will be given for the remainder of the active billing period.
• Account Bans & Forfeiture: If your account is suspended or permanently expelled due to a breach of our Community Guidelines or these Terms, the Herbal Alliance retains the right to withhold any pro-rata refunds for the remainder of your subscription. Any refunds given in such circumstances are strictly at the discretion of the Herbal Alliance.

 

4. User-Generated Content & Intellectual Property

We encourage the sharing of clinical knowledge, events, and resources within the parameters of our Community Guidelines.

• Content Liability: The Herbal Alliance holds no liability for information, advice, or events posted by members, schools, or organisations. Unless an event or resource is explicitly marked as hosted by the Herbal Alliance, we hold no responsibility for the accuracy or safety of member-submitted content nor the speakers invited during our seminars or events.
• Non-Exclusive Licence: You retain the copyright to the content you post (such as clinical forum posts or marketplace listings). However, by posting on the Portal, you grant the Herbal Alliance a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, display, format, and distribute your content across our platform or on our Social Media & Newsletters.
• Retention of Anonymised Content: If you delete your account, your personal identifying data will be erased in accordance with our Privacy Policy. However, under the non-exclusive licence granted above, the Herbal Alliance retains the right to keep your clinical forum posts and shared resources permanently on the platform under an “Anonymous” tag to preserve the integrity of the community’s clinical knowledge base.

 

5. The Internal Marketplace (Directorist)

The Private Portal includes an internal marketplace and jobs board.

• Zero Liability: The Herbal Alliance acts purely as a hosting platform for these listings. We hold zero liability for the quality, safety, legality, or fulfilment of any items, services, or employment/WWOOFing opportunities exchanged between members. All transactions and agreements are strictly between the involved parties.

 

6. Medical Liability & General Disclaimer

• Information, Not Medical Advice: The Herbal Alliance is a professional network and directory provider, not a healthcare provider. All content on the Public Directory and Private Portal is for educational and informational purposes only.
• Public Directory Use: The public directory facilitates connections between the public and practitioners. The Herbal Alliance holds no liability whatsoever for the clinical outcomes, advice, or treatments resulting from consultations booked through our directory.
• User-Submitted Listings: Information on practitioner profiles is user-submitted. While we perform initial entry vetting, users and patients must exercise their own due diligence before entering into a clinical relationship.

 

7. Modifications, Termination & Enforcement

• Right to Modify the Platform: We reserve the right to modify, update, suspend, or discontinue any feature, resource, or aspect of the Public Directory or Private Portal at any time, with or without notice. We hold no liability to you or any third party for any such modifications or for any temporary or permanent loss of access to specific platform features.

• Account Termination: We reserve the right to suspend, restrict, or terminate your individual access to the Public Directory and Private Portal at any time, without notice or liability, if we determine that you have violated these Terms, our Privacy Policy, or our Community Guidelines.

8. Governing Law & Jurisdiction

These Terms, and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with them, shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Republic of Ireland. The courts of the Republic of Ireland shall have exclusive jurisdiction to settle any dispute or claim arising under these Terms.

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Privacy Policy

Effective Date: March 2026

1. Introduction & Who We Are

Welcome to the Herbal Alliance (“we”, “us”, “our”). We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

The Herbal Alliance operates as a dual-site network hub:

1. The Public Website: A consumer-facing directory for finding qualified herbalists, public events and information on the Professional of Herbal Medicine (with its own Privacy Policy).

2. The Private Portal: A secure, members-only platform for clinical discussion, networking, and professional development.

For the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Irish Data Protection Act 2018, the Data Controller is the Herbal Alliance (registered as a sole trader in the Republic of Ireland. Entity number: 780070).

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your data, please contact us at: info@herbalalliance.org.

2. The Data We Collect

Because we operate a shared database across a Public Directory and a Private Portal, we collect different types of data depending on how you use the platform.

A. Data Visible to the Public (The Directory)

If you choose to publish a practitioner profile on our Public Directory, we collect and display only the information you explicitly input for this purpose. This may include:

• Your Business/Clinic Name

• Clinic Address and Geolocation

• Professional Association (PA) Registration

• Public Contact Number and Website URL

• Professional Biography and Qualifications

B. Data Visible to Portal Members (The “Private Room”)

Inside the Private Portal, logged-in members and organisations can view a limited subset of your data to facilitate professional networking:

• Your Account Name

• Your Professional Association (PA) affiliation

• Your Profile Type (e.g., Practitioner, Student, Organisation)

• Any content, comments, or resources you post in the forums (wpForo) or the marketplace (Directorist).

• Note: Your account email address remains completely private unless you manually choose to publish it.

C. Administrative & Financial Data (Strictly Private)

The following data is visible only to you and the site administrators:

• Your registered email address and login credentials.

• Your membership tier and subscription status (managed via MemberPress).

• Payment history. We do not store raw credit card data. All financial transactions are securely processed and tokenised by our payment gateway, Stripe.

D. Vetting & Verification Data (Strictly Private)

To uphold the integrity of the Herbal Alliance and fulfil our “Vetting Promise,” we collect specific documentation during your initial application to validate your status as a professional herbalist or student. This information is strictly confidential, viewed only by our administrative team, and never published. It may include:

• Proof of qualifications or graduation certificates.

• Evidence of current professional indemnity insurance.

• Letters of recommendation, referee details, or letters from course coordinators.

• Professional Association (PA) membership numbers.

We maintain the right to share your application details with the Professional Association you name on the registration form to validate your membership status.
 

E. Automated Tracking & Analytics

To improve our services and provide practitioners with dashboard analytics, we collect:

• Directory Analytics: We track profile views and outbound link clicks (e.g., website clicks) to display performance metrics on your private dashboard. This is tracked internally via your User ID.

• Website Analytics: We use Burst Statistics, User Insights, and occasionally Google Analytics to monitor site traffic and what features are used most. We employ IP anonymisation, meaning your full IP address is not logged or stored on our servers.

3. How We Use Your Data

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we use your data under the following lawful bases:

1. Performance of a Contract: To provide you with your membership benefits, process payments, and grant access to the Portal.

2. Legitimate Interests: To run our in-house marketing (via FluentCRM), secure our network, and manage the custom tracking engine that provides your dashboard analytics.

3. Consent: Where you have explicitly chosen to make your data public on the directory (self-submitted).

4. How We Share Your Data

We do not sell your data, nor do we share it with third-party marketing or external email agencies. Your data is only shared with trusted partners necessary to operate the platform:

• Hosting Providers: Our data is securely hosted on servers located in the UK via Krystal Hosting. (The UK benefits from an adequacy decision ensuring data protection standards equivalent to the EU).

• Payment Processors: Stripe processes our membership and event payments.

• Block Scheme Organisations: If your membership is funded or provided by a Professional Association (PA) or school via a “Block Scheme Membership,” we may share basic analytics with that organisation. This is limited to reporting whether you have activated your account and are actively using the platform.

5. Data Retention & Account Deletion

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

• Financial Records: By Irish law (Revenue Commissioners), we must keep basic information about our members (including Contact, Identity, and Financial Transaction data) for six years for tax purposes.

• Inactive Accounts: If your membership lapses and your account remains entirely inactive for a period of 2 years, your personal profile data will be scheduled for deletion.

• The Right to be Forgotten (Account Deletion): If you request account deletion, your personal profile data will be permanently erased and unrecoverable. To preserve the integrity of the clinical knowledge base, any forum posts or clinical discussions you contributed will remain, but they will be permanently stripped of your identity and reassigned to an “Anonymous User.”

6. Data Security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used, accessed in an unauthorised way, altered, or disclosed. Access to your personal data is limited to administrators who have a business need to know.

7. Your Legal Rights

Under EU and Irish data protection laws, you have rights including:

• Request access to your personal data.

• Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you.

• Request erasure of your personal data (subject to the retention rules regarding forum posts and financial records outlined in Section 5).

• Object to processing of your personal data.

• Request restriction of processing of your personal data.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at info@herbalalliance.org.

You also have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Data Protection Commission (DPC), the Republic of Ireland supervisory authority for data protection issues. We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the DPC as recommended by them.

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