Terms of Service

Last updated: 2026-05-18 Status: Draft pending legal review. Engineer-authored, with operator + governing-law placeholders pre-filled per docs/legal/README.md. Remaining [TBD — pending legal review] placeholders are flagged inline for counsel.

These Terms of Service ("Terms") form a binding agreement between you and Akshay Kumar ("we," "us") and govern your access to and use of the Yosemite trip planner and any successor product offered under the same name (the "Service").

If you do not agree to these Terms, do not use the Service.

1. Acceptance of these Terms

By creating an account, signing in, or otherwise using the Service, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms and by our Privacy Policy. If you are using the Service on behalf of another person or an organization, you represent that you have the authority to bind them to these Terms.

You must be at least 13 years old (or 16 in jurisdictions where that is the applicable digital-consent threshold) to use the Service. See §10.

2. What the Service is

The Service is a private group trip-planning tool. A small number of people ("members") who have been invited to a "trip" use the Service together to share a chat thread, propose hikes, vote on hikes, manage a packing list, log expenses and split balances, edit a shared itinerary, post photos with likes and comments, post group announcements, play a daily trivia game, log wildlife sightings, and (for the legacy Yosemite trip) listen to a GPS-triggered audio guide.

The Service is provided over the public internet from infrastructure operated by third parties (see the Privacy Policy §3 for the current vendor list).

We may add, change, suspend, or remove features at any time. We may also limit features to particular users, regions, or trip types. Where we materially reduce functionality you are paying for, we will give you reasonable notice.

3. Your account

3.1 Account creation

Today, accounts are created by an administrator on your behalf and you are given a username and an initial password to share out-of-band. In future self-serve flows, you may create your own account by choosing a username and a password.

You agree to provide accurate information when prompted and to keep that information up to date.

3.2 Password and account security

You are responsible for:

• Keeping your password secret. Do not share it. Do not reuse passwords from other sites.
• All activity that occurs under your account. If you believe your account has been used without your permission, change your password immediately at /reset-password and contact us at support@aksh04ay.com.

We hash passwords on the server side via Supabase Auth and never see or store the plaintext after sign-up or reset. We will never ask you for your password by email or chat.

3.3 One human, one account

Each account is intended for one human being. Do not create accounts for people who have not authorized you to do so. Do not create automated / script accounts.

4. Acceptable use

You agree not to use the Service to:

1. Harass, threaten, defame, or abuse any other user, including anyone inside your trip. Group chats, photo comments, and announcements are covered by this rule.
2. Post unlawful content, including content that infringes a third party's intellectual-property rights, content that depicts or solicits sexual exploitation of minors, content that incites violence, or content that is otherwise illegal where you are or where the recipients are.
3. Post sensitive personal information about another person without their consent (e.g. someone else's home address, payment account, government ID, medical information).
4. Upload malware or attempt to use the Service as a delivery channel for malicious code, phishing, or other attacks.
5. Attempt to bypass authentication, session controls, or row-level security, attempt to access trips you are not a member of, or otherwise probe the Service's security boundaries except via a coordinated good-faith security report (see §13).
6. Scrape, mass-download, or systematically extract the Service's contents — including photos, chat history, member rosters, or any other user-generated content — by any means other than the in-product UI for your own data. Manual export of content you own is fine; automated harvesting is not.
7. Interfere with the Service's operation, including by sending abnormally large or frequent requests, denial-of-service traffic, or traffic intended to inflate counts (e.g. fake votes, fake trivia answers).
8. Misrepresent your identity to other members, or impersonate another user.
9. Use the Service for commercial advertising or solicitation unrelated to the trip.
10. Resell, sublicense, or rent access to the Service.

We may remove content or suspend accounts that violate this section. See §8.

5. Your content

5.1 Ownership

You retain ownership of the content you submit to the Service — your chat messages, photos (and the EXIF metadata embedded in them), expense entries, hike proposals, comments, announcements, etc. ("User Content"). The Service does not claim ownership over User Content.

5.2 License you grant us

You grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, copy, transmit, display, format, and otherwise process User Content solely for the purpose of operating the Service for you and the other members of your trip. For example, this lets us put a photo you upload on the trip's photo wall and re-encode it into different sizes for the feed. You also grant us the limited rights necessary to perform routine operations like backups, replication across data center zones, virus / abuse scanning, and migration to a successor system.

This license ends when the User Content is deleted from the Service, except to the extent it persists in routine backups for the retention window of our vendors (see Privacy Policy §9).

We do not claim a right to use User Content for marketing of the Service, to train general-purpose AI models, or to license to third parties.

5.3 License you grant other members

By posting User Content into a trip, you grant the other members of that trip the practical ability to view, react to, comment on, and (within in-product features) save / re-download that content while they are members of the trip. They are bound by these Terms with respect to that content, including the acceptable-use rules.

5.4 Photos and EXIF

Photos uploaded via /photos are stored in a publicly readable storage bucket (see Privacy Policy §1.4). The in-product feed only shows photos to members of your trip, but the underlying file URL, if discovered or shared, can be opened by anyone. EXIF metadata (including GPS coordinates) stays embedded in the photo file as uploaded. Do not upload anything to /photos that you would mind a stranger seeing or geo-locating from the metadata.

5.5 Responsibility for User Content

You are solely responsible for the User Content you post. We do not pre-screen User Content. We may, but are not obligated to, review or remove User Content that we believe violates these Terms.

5.6 Reporting infringement

If you believe content on the Service infringes your copyright, send a notice to support@aksh04ay.com that includes:

1. Your physical or electronic signature.
2. Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to be infringed.
3. Identification of the material claimed to be infringing and a URL or other location where it can be found in the Service.
4. Your contact information.
5. A statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
6. A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notice is accurate and that you are authorized to act on the copyright owner's behalf.

We may, in appropriate circumstances, terminate the accounts of repeat infringers.

6. Bot output (El Capo)

The /chat page includes a chat bot ("El Capo") that calls a third-party large language model (Cloudflare Workers AI) to generate replies. Bot replies are generated by a probabilistic model and may be inaccurate, out of date, or just wrong, including for things that look like factual claims (trail conditions, distances, restaurant hours, weather, regulations). Do not rely on bot output for decisions that affect your safety or legal position. Verify with primary sources (NPS, AllTrails, the operator of the business in question, etc.) before acting.

You are responsible for what you ask the bot. The acceptable-use rules in §4 apply to bot prompts.

7. Service availability and changes

The Service is provided on an "as available" basis. We do not guarantee any particular uptime, latency, throughput, or that the Service will be free of bugs or interruptions. We may take the Service offline for maintenance, upgrades, security incidents, or for any other reason at our discretion.

We may change, add, or remove features at any time. We may change these Terms (see §14).

8. Suspension and termination

8.1 By you

You may stop using the Service at any time. To delete your account, contact us per Privacy Policy §8.

8.2 By us

We may suspend or terminate your account or your access to a trip, with or without notice, if we reasonably believe that:

• You have violated these Terms (especially §4).
• Continued access creates a security or legal risk to us or to other users.
• A trip administrator has asked us to remove you from their trip (in which case the account itself is unaffected; only your membership in that trip ends).

8.3 Effect of termination

On termination, your right to use the Service ends. Sections of these Terms that by their nature should survive termination (including §5.2 backup license, §9 disclaimers, §10 limitation of liability, §12 governing law, §14 changes, and this §8.3) will survive.

9. Disclaimer of warranties

THE SERVICE AND ALL CONTENT MADE AVAILABLE THROUGH IT ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, TITLE, AND ANY WARRANTIES ARISING FROM A COURSE OF DEALING OR USAGE OF TRADE. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, SECURE, ACCURATE, OR ERROR-FREE.

The Service includes information about hikes, trail conditions, weather, parking, audio-guide narration, and similar trip-planning content. None of that is professional advice. Mountains are dangerous; weather changes; trail conditions vary; signs get moved; bears exist. You are responsible for your own safety, your own gear, your own permits, and your own judgment in the field. Always cross-check with the National Park Service and other authoritative sources before relying on anything you see in the Service.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties; in those jurisdictions, the exclusions in this section apply to the maximum extent permitted by law.

10. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, IN NO EVENT WILL WE OR OUR OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, OR LICENSORS BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, GOODWILL, USE, OR DATA, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THESE TERMS OR THE SERVICE, EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

OUR TOTAL CUMULATIVE LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THESE TERMS OR THE SERVICE IS LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF (a) THE TOTAL AMOUNT YOU HAVE PAID US FOR THE SERVICE IN THE 12 MONTHS PRECEDING THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM, OR (b) US$100.

As of the "Last updated" date above, the Service is provided to its users free of charge. That means clause (a) above evaluates to US$0 today, and the cap is US$100. If we begin charging fees, clause (a) will become relevant.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of certain damages; in those jurisdictions our liability is limited to the maximum extent permitted by law.

11. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless us, our officers, employees, and agents from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of or in any way connected with (a) your use of the Service, (b) User Content you submit, (c) your violation of these Terms, or (d) your violation of any rights of another person or entity. We will give you prompt notice of any such claim and will reasonably cooperate in your defense; you may not settle a claim that imposes any obligation on us without our prior written consent.

12. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of California, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply.

Subject to the next paragraph, you and we agree that the state and federal courts located in [TBD — pending legal review; intended venue: a county within the State of California] will have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service, and you consent to personal jurisdiction in those courts.

Nothing in this section prevents either party from seeking injunctive or equitable relief in any court of competent jurisdiction to protect its intellectual-property rights or confidential information, or from exercising consumer-protection rights that cannot be waived under applicable local law.

[Optional addition for US launches: an arbitration / class-action waiver clause. Discuss with counsel — many US consumer SaaS terms include one but they require careful drafting and specific notices, especially in California, and they are not enforceable in many jurisdictions outside the US.]

13. Security reports

If you discover a security issue in the Service, please report it privately to support@aksh04ay.com (a dedicated security@ alias is [TBD — pending legal review]) before disclosing it publicly. We commit to acknowledging good-faith reports promptly and to not pursuing legal action against researchers who follow this responsible disclosure process and who do not access or modify other users' data beyond what is necessary to demonstrate the issue.

14. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. The "Last updated" date at the top reflects the most recent change. For material changes (e.g. changes to liability, dispute resolution, or fees) we will give reasonable advance notice in the Service before the new version takes effect. Your continued use of the Service after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the new Terms; if you do not agree, stop using the Service.

15. Miscellaneous

• Entire agreement. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Service and supersede any prior agreements on the same subject.
• Severability. If any provision of these Terms is held to be unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in full force and effect.
• No waiver. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of our right to do so later.
• Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our prior written consent. We may assign these Terms in connection with a merger, acquisition, sale of assets, or by operation of law.
• Force majeure. Neither party is liable for delays or failures caused by circumstances beyond its reasonable control (acts of God, natural disasters, war, civil unrest, governmental action, internet or electrical outages, third-party vendor failure).
• Notices. We may send notices to you in-product or to the contact information on file for your account. You may send notices to us at support@aksh04ay.com.
• Independent contractors. Nothing in these Terms creates a partnership, joint venture, employment, or agency relationship.

16. Contact

Questions about these Terms go to:

• Email: support@aksh04ay.com
• Postal: [TBD — pending legal review]

This document is a draft prepared by an engineer for review by counsel prior to public launch. Governing law (California) and operator identity (Akshay Kumar) are pre-filled per the launch checklist; remaining bracketed placeholders await legal review. It is not legal advice and should not be relied upon as such.