2010, ProBoards was hosted by ThePlanet.com, and previous to 2006, EV1 Servers. The servers are hosted in multiple SoftLayer datacenters in Texas. In 2005, Patrick Clinger was invited by EV1 Servers to take part in a commercial for their business. The commercial opened with a voiceover introducing Clinger as the owner of ProBoards.com, and he then gave a testimonial about how EV1's hosting benefited ProBoards. The commercial was shown at the 2005 Houston Bowl. Since 2007, EV1 no longer exists as a webhost, having merged with The Planet. As of March 2009, the server numbers (boardname.proboards##.com) no longer need to be used due to a recent change that allows every ProBoards forum to be accessed without a server number in the URL. (For example, boardname.proboards.com) Due to the advent of Facebook, ProBoards transitioned into a social network and forum service hybrid with the introduction of version 5. Hosting Although a number of subscription style features are optionally available, there is no obligation for any user to purchase anything from ProBoards. Forums are hosted for free, with no bandwidth or webspace cap, provided users allow advertisements to be displayed on their forum. Until September 2003, ProBoards was supported by popunders, but these were discontinued in favor of less intrusive methods of advertising. Currently a typical forum will contain a Google AdSense banner ad and some small text links on every page. ProBoards also sells advertising directly to users through a selfserve system. ProBoards also has an agreement with a third party chatroom provider, addonInteractive, to provide Java-based chatrooms to users. Each forum admin can activate a free version of the chat on their forum, with paid upgrades available for busy forums. The chats integrate fully with forum accounts. Policies ProBoards users are bound by a number of Terms of Service, restricting the type of content which may appear on a ProBoards forum. ProBoards prohibits illegal or adult content. Formerly, only English forums were allowed, but in May 2010 this policy was changed, allowing boards to be created in any language. In addition to content policies, Proboards terms also seemingly prohibit the use of "ad-blocking" technology when accessing its services. User privacy is protected by a Privacy Policy outlining the use of logged information, as well as cookie policy, forum monitoring, and publicly available information. The US COPPA law is enforced by requiring all users to enter their date of birth on