Terms of Service

These Terms of Service are an agreement between you and PickleTrips (“PickleTrips”, “we”, “us”) covering your use of the PickleTrips platform. You accept them by creating an account (acceptance is a required onboarding step) or by using the platform. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal information and forms part of the picture — read both.

• You must be at least 16 years old to hold a PickleTrips account.
• You need a verified mobile number to complete onboarding; keep your sign-in credentials secure and don't share your account.
• One person, one account. Accounts are personal and non-transferable.
• You are responsible for activity that happens under your account.

PickleTrips runs on trust between players: use your real identity, keep your profile details accurate, and record match results honestly. Deliberately entering false results, manipulating ratings, impersonating others or creating accounts to evade restrictions is a breach of these Terms.

Clubs on PickleTrips are run by their own members. Club owners and administrators control membership, roles, events, media and club settings for their club, and are responsible for exercising that authority reasonably and only for running the club.

• Joining a club means the club's administrators can see your membership details and participation (see the Privacy Policy).
• Clubs may keep internal administration records where those features are enabled — see the club records section below.
• We can step in where club administration breaches these Terms or platform safety.

Organisers control their events: format, scheduling, eligibility, courts and result management. Entering an event means the organiser can see your entrant details and manage your participation. We provide the tools (pairings, standings, results, notifications) but the event itself — including its conduct, venue and any prizes — is the organiser’s responsibility unless we state otherwise for a specific event. Play at your own risk: pickleball is a physical sport, and you are responsible for your own fitness to play and conduct on court.

Ratings on PickleTrips (including provisional platform ratings and any linked DUPR figures) are estimates computed from recorded results. They will sometimes be wrong or lag your real level, and we don’t guarantee their accuracy or that any player’s identity or skill matches their profile. Results can be corrected through organiser tools and our dispute process; final competition decisions rest with the organiser and, on the platform side, with us.

Community spaces (feeds, comments, reactions, reports) work when they stay decent:

• Be respectful — no harassment, hate, threats or targeted abuse.
• No sexualised, violent or otherwise inappropriate content; PickleTrips is an all-ages sporting community.
• No spam, scams or misleading commercial promotion.
• Use reports for genuine problems, not to pile onto people.

You keep ownership of the content you upload — posts, photos, match footage, profile media. So we can run the platform, you grant PickleTrips a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, adapt (for example transcoding or thumbnails), display and distribute that content within the platform, and to process it through the features you use (for example PB Vision analysis when footage is submitted). The licence lasts while the content is on the platform, plus the residual handling described in the Privacy Policy (for example anonymised community history and backups).

You are responsible for what you upload. Only upload content that:

• you created or have the right to share;
• doesn't infringe anyone's intellectual property, privacy or other rights;
• complies with the community conduct rules above.

Match footage usually shows more than one person. If you record or upload footage, you are responsible for having appropriate permission from the people who appear in it, and for following any venue or event recording rules. By playing in sessions or events that are being filmed with the participants’ knowledge, you can expect resulting footage may be uploaded by a participant or organiser for review and analysis. If you appear in footage you want removed, use in-app reporting or contact us and we will review it under our moderation rules.

Video analytics (shot stats, rallies, highlights) are produced by automated systems, including the third-party PB Vision service. Automated analysis is inherently imperfect: shots get misclassified, players get mismapped, scores can be read wrong. Analytics are provided as-is for training and enjoyment, are not authoritative records, and organiser or platform decisions (like verified results) take precedence over automated output.

The coaching directory connects players with independent coaches. Coaches are not employed by PickleTrips; sessions, quality and outcomes are between coach and player.

• Coach verification is limited to the specific checks we state on a profile (for example that a document was sighted); it is not a guarantee of coaching quality or ongoing accreditation.
• Coaches must keep their credentials, insurance and compliance documents current and accurate, and must accept the coach declarations when applying.
• Junior coaching: coaches working with players under 18 must hold and maintain a valid Working With Children Check for their state and comply with child-safety law. We require WWCC evidence during verification, and can suspend coach profiles that fall out of compliance.

Venue listings, court bookings, maps, weather and travel-related features rely on third parties (venues themselves, Google Maps, weather providers). Venues are responsible for their facilities, availability and safety; we don’t guarantee court availability or venue condition. Third-party services you interact with (for example DUPR if you link it) have their own terms.

PickleTrips does not currently process payments on the platform — there is no on-platform billing, and features that mention future paid options (for example club “fine jars” or membership tiers) are informational or internal record-keeping only. If paid features launch, they will come with their own clearly presented terms before you are charged anything.

Some clubs use light-hearted or administrative record-keeping — such as fine jars or disciplinary notes — where those features are enabled. These are internal club records only: they are not debts enforceable by PickleTrips, not legal instruments, and not payment obligations we collect. Whether and how a club runs them is the club’s business, within these Terms; access is restricted to the club roles that need it.

• Breaking the law or encouraging others to.
• Harassment, discrimination, hate speech or threats.
• Impersonation, fake accounts, ban evasion or misrepresenting affiliation.
• Match-fixing, rating manipulation or falsifying results.
• Uploading content you have no right to share, or that exploits or endangers minors (zero tolerance — reported to authorities where appropriate).
• Scraping, probing, disrupting or attempting to bypass security or access controls.
• Using the platform to spam, advertise deceptively or harvest personal information.

We may review, restrict, remove or refuse any content, and warn, restrict, suspend or ban any account, where we reasonably believe these Terms or platform safety require it. Club administrators moderate their own club spaces; platform moderation sits above that. We aim to act proportionately and, where practical, to tell you what happened and why — but we can act immediately where safety or integrity demands it.

You can stop using PickleTrips and request account deletion at any time (see the Privacy Policy for how deletion and anonymisation work, including transferring any club you own). We can suspend or terminate accounts that breach these Terms, and may retain the records described in the Privacy Policy after termination. Sections that by nature survive (content licence residuals, disclaimers, liability, disputes) survive termination.

The PickleTrips platform — its software, design, branding and content we create — is owned by us or our licensors. We grant you a personal, non-transferable, non-exclusive right to use the platform under these Terms. Don’t copy, resell, reverse engineer or build derivative services from it, except where the law expressly permits.

PickleTrips is an evolving platform: features ship, change and are sometimes withdrawn, and some areas are marked early access or preview. We don’t promise uninterrupted or error-free operation, and we may modify or discontinue features. We will take reasonable care with anything that affects your stored data, consistent with the Privacy Policy.

To be explicit about what we don’t guarantee:

• that any player's identity, rating or self-description is accurate;
• that coaches hold qualifications beyond the verification we actually performed;
• that courts, venues or events will be available or as described;
• that automated analytics (including PB Vision output) are accurate;
• that you will find matches, players or opponents of any particular standard;
• that participation will be free of injury — sport carries physical risk you accept by playing.

Nothing in these Terms excludes rights you have under the Australian Consumer Law or other law that cannot be excluded.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, PickleTrips is not liable for indirect, incidental or consequential loss arising from your use of the platform, from user-generated content, from conduct of other users, clubs, organisers, coaches or venues, or from third-party services. Where liability cannot be excluded but can be limited, our liability is limited to re-supplying the affected service. Where the Australian Consumer Law gives you guarantees, nothing here reduces them.

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You agree to cover losses PickleTrips reasonably incurs from claims by third parties arising out of your content or your breach of these Terms — for example a claim that footage you uploaded infringed someone’s rights — except to the extent we caused the loss.

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These Terms are governed by the laws of Victoria, Australia, and you and we submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Victoria.

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We will update these Terms as the platform evolves; the version and date at the top identify the current text. For material changes we will take reasonable steps to notify you (for example an in-app notice or asking you to re-accept). Continuing to use PickleTrips after the effective date means the updated Terms apply.

Questions about these Terms: support@pickletrips.com.au — or use the contact page.