Rules of Engagement
Community Standards &
Terms of Participation
These rules exist to protect every person in this community. Please read them fully before participating.
⚖️ Attorney Review Notice: These community rules and terms have been drafted for attorney review prior to public launch. They are intentionally comprehensive to protect users, platform integrity, and legal compliance. If you are the attorney reviewing this document, please flag any sections requiring modification for HIPAA compliance, Section 230 protection, FDA disclaimer requirements, or state-specific regulations.
1. Purpose and Scope
Your Cancer Path is a research, education, and peer support platform for cancer patients, survivors, caregivers, and their families. It is not a medical practice, does not provide medical advice, and is not a substitute for consultation with a licensed physician or oncologist.
All information on Your Cancer Path is intended to help users become more informed participants in their own healthcare decisions — not to replace professional medical judgment.
Medical Disclaimer: Nothing on Your Cancer Path constitutes medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment recommendations. Always consult with your qualified healthcare provider before making any medical decisions. In a medical emergency, call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.
2. Community Conduct Rules
All users — whether browsing anonymously or with an account — agree to the following standards when interacting with Your Cancer Path:
- Be factual about your own experience. You may share what happened to you. You may not present your experience as applicable to others or as medical guidance.
- Do not make medical claims about treatments. You may say "this drug made me feel X." You may not say "this drug cures cancer" or "this drug is better than what your doctor recommends."
- No promotion of unproven or alternative cures. Claims that supplements, diets, spiritual practices, or unproven substances cure cancer will be removed. Sharing personal use of complementary therapies as part of your story is acceptable with appropriate framing.
- No commercial promotion. You may not post affiliate links, promote products or services, advertise your practice or clinic, or solicit business of any kind.
- Respect privacy. Never share another member's personal health information without explicit written consent. Do not attempt to identify anonymous users.
- Be kind and constructive. Illness creates fear; fear creates sharpness. We ask for patience and empathy. Personal attacks, harassment, or bullying will result in immediate removal.
- No misinformation. Do not post false or misleading information about treatments, clinical trials, or medical institutions. If you are unsure whether something is accurate, ask rather than assert.
- No solicitation of personal contact outside the platform. Do not share your email, phone number, or solicit others' contact information in public posts. Use the platform's private messaging feature when available.
3. Moderation System
All posts submitted to Your Cancer Path go into a moderation queue before becoming publicly visible. Posts are reviewed by trained volunteer moderators — all of whom are cancer survivors or caregivers with lived experience.
Automated Red Flag System: Our platform uses keyword and pattern detection to pre-categorize posts:
- 🔴 Red Flag (Auto-Hold, Priority Review): Posts containing miracle cure language, specific product promotion, pricing for medical services, claims that a drug "cures" any cancer, or references to obtaining prescription drugs illegally.
- 🟡 Yellow Flag (Human Review Required): Posts containing strong efficacy claims about specific named drugs, references to Right to Try or off-label use, discussion of clinical trial access outside of enrollment, or emotionally intense content that may require sensitivity review.
- 🟢 Green (Standard Queue): Personal experience sharing, questions to the community, emotional support, and general discussion.
Moderator Note: Volunteer moderators are empowered to Approve, Reject, or Escalate to a senior moderator or the Your Cancer Path team. Moderators are not medical professionals and do not evaluate medical accuracy — they evaluate compliance with community standards. Medical accuracy is handled at the platform content level by our medical advisory board.
4. Content Accuracy Standards
Treatment information, clinical trial data, drug efficacy figures, and side effect profiles published by Your Cancer Path on its treatment and trial pages are sourced exclusively from:
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drug labeling and approval announcements
- ClinicalTrials.gov trial registration data
- Peer-reviewed published clinical trial results
- National Cancer Institute (NCI) data
- Published prescribing information (package inserts)
Your Cancer Path does not publish editorial opinions on treatment effectiveness. Where data conflicts between sources, we note the conflict and cite all sources. All content pages display their last review date and data source.
5. Trial Matching & Opt-In Data
Users who create an account and opt in to trial matching agree to the following:
- Their profile data (cancer type, stage, treatment history, location) may be used to identify relevant clinical trial matches.
- Matched trial sponsors may contact them through the Your Cancer Path platform only — personal contact information is never shared with third parties.
- The opt-in can be removed at any time by updating account preferences.
- Your Cancer Path does not sell personal health data. Sponsors pay for platform access, not individual data records.
- All data is stored in HIPAA-compliant encrypted systems. [Attorney: Please review our data practices document separately for HIPAA compliance certification.]
6. Consequences of Violations
- First violation: Post removed, private warning issued to account holder.
- Second violation: Post removed, 7-day account suspension, written warning.
- Third violation: Permanent account ban. Device and IP flagged.
- Immediate permanent ban (no warnings): Promotion of illegal drug acquisition, harassment or threats, intentional medical misinformation likely to cause harm, sharing another user's private health information without consent, commercial spam or affiliate marketing.
Zero Tolerance: Any post that a reasonable person would interpret as promoting self-harm, discouraging evidence-based medical treatment in favor of unproven alternatives, or creating imminent risk of patient harm will result in immediate removal and permanent ban without appeal.
7. Volunteer Moderator Standards
Volunteer moderators agree to additional standards:
- Review posts only against community standards — not personal medical opinion.
- Maintain strict confidentiality of all content reviewed in the queue.
- Escalate any post that raises a question of user safety, medical emergency, or platform liability.
- Recuse themselves from reviewing posts from people they know personally.
- Complete Your Cancer Path moderator training before reviewing any posts.
- Commit to a minimum of 3 hours per week review time.
8. Right to Try & Expanded Access Content
Your Cancer Path provides educational guides on Right to Try and FDA Expanded Access. This content is:
- Informational only — not legal or medical advice.
- Sourced from the FDA, Right to Try Act (21 U.S.C. § 360bbb-0a), and official government resources.
- Not an endorsement of any specific drug, manufacturer, or access pathway.
Your Cancer Path does not facilitate or arrange drug access on behalf of any user. We provide information to help patients advocate for themselves in partnership with their treating physician.
Full Terms of Service
⚖️ Attorney Review — Terms of Service: The following Terms of Service are drafted for attorney review. Sections marked [ATTORNEY NOTE] require jurisdiction-specific review, including Section 230 applicability, HIPAA compliance, FDA disclaimer adequacy, California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) conformance, and enforceability of limitation of liability and arbitration clauses.
9. Terms of Service — Acceptance and Eligibility
By accessing or using Your Cancer Path (the "Platform"), whether as an anonymous visitor, registered user, community member, volunteer moderator, or any other capacity, you ("User") agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms"), our Privacy Policy, and our Community Rules, all of which are incorporated herein by reference.
If you do not agree to these Terms in their entirety, you must immediately discontinue use of the Platform. Your Cancer Path reserves the right to modify these Terms at any time. Continued use of the Platform following notice of modification constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.
- Age Requirement: You must be at least 13 years of age to use the Platform. Users under 18 must have parental or guardian consent. Your Cancer Path does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.
- Geographic Scope: The Platform is operated from the United States. Users accessing the Platform from outside the United States do so at their own risk and are responsible for compliance with local laws.
- Capacity: By using the Platform, you represent that you have the legal capacity to enter into binding agreements under applicable law.
10. Intellectual Property Rights
The Your Cancer Path name, compass rose logo, tagline "Find Clarity. Move Forward.", platform design, source code, written content, community guidelines, treatment data organization and presentation methodology, trial matching system, and all other original content on the Platform are the exclusive intellectual property of Your Cancer Path and its founder, Kelly Foy, protected by United States and international copyright, trademark, and trade secret laws.
Prohibited Conduct: You may not copy, reproduce, scrape, redistribute, create derivative works from, reverse engineer, sell, license, or otherwise exploit any portion of the Platform or its content without express prior written permission from Your Cancer Path. This prohibition applies to the Platform's design, code, written content, data organization, and community infrastructure — in whole or in part.
User-submitted content (posts, comments, testimonials) remains the intellectual property of the submitting user. By submitting content to the Platform, you grant Your Cancer Path a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to use, display, reproduce, and distribute such content in connection with operating and promoting the Platform, including in anonymized and aggregated research and marketing materials.
[ATTORNEY NOTE: Confirm DMCA safe harbor compliance, counter-notification procedures, and designated agent registration with Copyright Office.]
11. Privacy, Data Collection, and HIPAA
Your Cancer Path collects the following categories of information:
- Anonymous browsing: Standard server logs, aggregate analytics. No personally identifiable information collected.
- Registered users: Username, email address, cancer type, disease stage, treatment status, and geographic region (state/region only).
- Opted-in users: All of the above plus additional health profile information voluntarily provided for trial matching purposes.
- Community contributors: User-submitted posts, comments, and media, associated with your account.
Your Cancer Path treats all health-related user data as protected health information (PHI) and implements HIPAA-compliant administrative, physical, and technical safeguards. We do not sell your personal data. We do not share your personal contact information with pharmaceutical sponsors or any third party without your explicit consent. Sponsors may contact opted-in users only through the Platform's internal messaging system.
You have the right to access, correct, export, and delete your personal data at any time through your account settings. Requests can also be submitted to [email protected].
[ATTORNEY NOTE: Review full CCPA compliance requirements for California users, including opt-out rights, data deletion timelines, and annual disclosure obligations. Confirm HIPAA covered entity vs. business associate status. Prepare full Privacy Policy as a separate document.]
12. Clinical Trial Opt-In and Sponsor Matching
The trial matching and opt-in contact feature operates as follows:
- Participation in trial matching is entirely voluntary. You may opt in or out at any time through your account settings.
- By opting in, you authorize Your Cancer Path to share your anonymized health profile (cancer type, stage, treatment history, geographic region) with vetted clinical trial sponsors for the sole purpose of evaluating your potential eligibility for clinical trials.
- Sponsors may send you a single introductory message through the Platform's internal messaging system. You control all further contact and may block any sponsor at any time.
- Your Cancer Path charges sponsors a platform access fee. You are never charged for trial matching. Your Cancer Path does not receive compensation based on whether you enroll in a trial.
- Trial matching is not a guarantee of eligibility, enrollment, or medical benefit. Eligibility is determined solely by the trial sponsor and your treating physician.
- Your Cancer Path is not a healthcare provider, clinical research organization, or patient recruitment agency. We are an information and community platform that facilitates connections between willing patients and vetted researchers.
[ATTORNEY NOTE: Review FDA regulations on patient recruitment advertising (21 C.F.R. Part 312), FTC endorsement guidelines, and state-specific patient brokering laws. Confirm sponsor vetting standards and contractual requirements for platform access.]
13. Disclaimer of Warranties and Limitation of Liability
IMPORTANT — READ CAREFULLY: The Platform and all content, information, tools, features, and services provided thereon are offered "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, completeness, or non-infringement.
Your Cancer Path does not warrant that:
- Treatment information, clinical trial listings, drug efficacy data, or side effect profiles are complete, current, or applicable to your specific medical situation;
- The Platform will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free of viruses or other harmful components;
- Any clinical trial you learn about through the Platform will accept you as a participant or produce a medical benefit;
- Community member posts or testimonials are accurate, complete, or medically reliable.
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Your Cancer Path, its founder, officers, advisors, moderators, and affiliates shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, punitive, or exemplary damages arising from your use of or inability to use the Platform, including but not limited to medical decisions made in reliance on Platform content, loss of data, or unauthorized access to your account.
Your Cancer Path's total cumulative liability to you for any claim arising from these Terms or your use of the Platform shall not exceed the greater of: (a) the total fees paid by you to Your Cancer Path in the twelve months preceding the claim, or (b) one hundred dollars ($100.00).
[ATTORNEY NOTE: Confirm enforceability of liability cap under California law. Review consumer protection statutes that may limit disclaimer enforceability for health-related platforms.]
14. Indemnification
You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Your Cancer Path, its founder Kelly Foy, medical advisors, volunteer moderators, employees, contractors, and agents from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of or related to: (a) your use of the Platform; (b) your violation of these Terms; (c) your violation of any third-party rights, including intellectual property, privacy, or publicity rights; (d) any content you submit to the Platform; or (e) any medical decision you make based on information found on the Platform.
15. Governing Law, Arbitration, and Class Action Waiver
These Terms shall be governed by the laws of the State of California without regard to conflict of law principles. Any dispute arising from or relating to these Terms or your use of the Platform shall be resolved by binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, except that either party may seek injunctive or other equitable relief in any court of competent jurisdiction to protect intellectual property or confidential information.
Class Action Waiver: You agree that any arbitration shall be conducted solely on an individual basis and not as a class, collective, or representative action. You expressly waive your right to participate in any class action lawsuit or class-wide arbitration against Your Cancer Path.
[ATTORNEY NOTE: Review enforceability of mandatory arbitration and class action waiver under California law, including PAGA claims for employees. Confirm AAA Consumer Arbitration Rules are appropriate and that filing fees do not create unconscionability concerns.]
16. Section 230 and User-Generated Content
Your Cancer Path is an interactive computer service as defined under 47 U.S.C. § 230 (the Communications Decency Act). Your Cancer Path is not the publisher or speaker of user-generated content posted by community members and is not liable for such content to the extent permitted by Section 230. Your Cancer Path's moderation activities, including reviewing, approving, rejecting, or removing content, do not constitute editorial control that would eliminate Section 230 protections.
However, Your Cancer Path does not rely solely on Section 230 as a shield. We proactively moderate all content before publication to protect our community, and we will cooperate with law enforcement and regulatory authorities in response to lawful requests regarding Platform content.
[ATTORNEY NOTE: Confirm current Section 230 jurisprudence in the Ninth Circuit and any pending legislative changes. Review whether health-specific platforms face additional exposure under state consumer protection or health information statutes.]
17. Donations, Memberships, and Financial Transactions
Your Cancer Path accepts voluntary donations and Founding Member fees to support platform operations. All financial transactions are processed through third-party payment processors. Your Cancer Path does not store payment card information.
- Founding Memberships are one-time, lifetime payments that unlock premium features. They are non-refundable except where required by applicable law.
- Donations are voluntary contributions and are non-refundable. Whether donations are tax-deductible depends on Your Cancer Path's current tax status, which will be disclosed at the time of donation.
- Angel and Visionary contributions are subject to separate written agreements. Contact [email protected] for details.
[ATTORNEY NOTE: Review IRS regulations on charitable solicitation, state charitable solicitation registration requirements (many states require registration before soliciting donations), and FTC endorsement rules for testimonials used in fundraising.]
18. Contact and Notices
All legal notices, attorney correspondence, DMCA takedown requests, privacy requests, and general inquiries should be directed to:
- Email: [email protected]
- Founder: Kelly Foy, Your Cancer Path
- Location: Santa Ynez Valley, California
- Website: yourcancerpath.com
Your Cancer Path will respond to properly submitted legal notices within 10 business days. For urgent matters involving user safety or potential harm, please indicate "URGENT" in your subject line.
Last Updated: April 2026 (Pre-Launch Draft — Pending Attorney Review)
Effective Date: Upon public launch (TBD)
Version: 1.0 MVP Draft
These Terms, Community Rules, and Privacy Policy collectively constitute the complete legal framework governing use of Your Cancer Path. Your Cancer Path reserves the right to update these documents at any time. Users will be notified of material changes via email (registered users) and platform banner notice (all users).
