Community Guidelines

SportsPal exists to help adults move, meet, and belong through real activities. Every profile, message, activity, club, route, and tournament should make that easier—not less safe, less honest, or less welcoming.

1. Purpose and scope

These Community Guidelines explain the content and conduct allowed on SportsPal – Local Activities (the “Service”). They apply to every user, host, participant, club administrator, tournament organizer, team representative, and anyone acting for an organization through SportsPal.

They cover profiles, usernames, images, posts, reactions, activity listings, routes and GPX files, clubs, tournaments, rosters, invitations, direct and group messages, audio messages, SportsPal Pass and QR features, support communications, reports, and any other user-generated content or interaction.

They also apply to relevant conduct outside the Service when it involves people who connected through SportsPal, an activity or event discovered or arranged through SportsPal, a SportsPal club or tournament, or conduct that creates a credible safety or integrity risk for the community. Moving a conversation to another app does not move it outside these rules.

These Guidelines form part of the Terms of Use. They are not exhaustive. SportsPal may address new, comparable, or deliberately evasive forms of harmful conduct based on their context and likely impact. Mandatory law always applies.

2. The core rules

• Adults only

  You must be 18 or older. Do not invite or create accounts for minors.

• Be real

  Use an authentic identity and describe yourself, your role, and your activities honestly.

• Respect boundaries

  Consent matters online and in person. “No,” a block, and silence after a clear request to stop all mean stop.

• Play safely

  Do not pressure, deceive, endanger, assault, haze, or recklessly expose others to avoidable harm.

• Host responsibly

  Publish accurate details, disclose costs and risks, keep people updated, and provide a real on-site contact.

• Protect the community

  Report genuine concerns, preserve relevant evidence, and never retaliate or weaponize reports.

3. Adults only and authentic identity

SportsPal is strictly 18+

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account, use the Service, join or host an activity, enter a roster, or appear as a participant. Do not create an account for a minor, invite a minor to participate through SportsPal, or falsely state an age.

Content that sexually exploits, abuses, grooms, or endangers a minor is prohibited without exception and may be reported to the appropriate authorities or child-safety organizations as required by law. Do not use images of a child as a profile photo. Do not post identifiable images or personal information about minors without proper authority and verifiable parent or guardian permission; SportsPal may still remove such material to protect safety.

Represent yourself and your role honestly

• Each personal account must belong to one real, responsible person. Do not share account access or operate deceptive duplicate accounts.
• You may use the name you genuinely use in everyday life, but you may not impersonate another person, athlete, coach, referee, venue, club, brand, public body, or SportsPal representative.
• Organization, club, and tournament pages must identify a genuine responsible organizer and must not falsely imply verification, sponsorship, affiliation, qualification, or endorsement.
• Profile photos and material claims about identity, age, location, skill, qualifications, achievements, or authority must not be deceptive.
• Parody, fan, or tribute content must be unmistakably labeled and must not create confusion or target someone for harassment.

4. Respect, inclusion, and fair access

Treat other users, venue staff, officials, volunteers, spectators, and SportsPal support with basic dignity. Competitive intensity never excuses abuse.

Do not bully, shame, humiliate, exploit, or target someone because of their experience, ability, body, appearance, fitness, performance, injury, disability, financial situation, or personal background. Constructive feedback about play is allowed; personal degradation is not.

Hosts may set clear, lawful, and genuinely relevant participation requirements, such as skill level, competitive division, equipment, accessibility limits, or safety prerequisites. Requirements must be disclosed before joining and applied consistently. They must not be a pretext for unlawful discrimination. Lawful sport-specific eligibility categories may be used only where they are transparent, proportionate, and genuinely necessary for the format or governing rules.

Reasonable accommodation and accessibility information should be provided where possible. Never mock or retaliate against someone for requesting an accommodation or explaining a limitation.

5. Boundaries, harassment, and unwanted contact

Harassment includes conduct that is unwanted, repeated, threatening, degrading, sexually intrusive, coercive, or reasonably likely to make someone fear for their safety. It may happen in content, messages, audio, at an activity, after an activity, or through another service.

You must not:

• threaten, intimidate, stalk, follow, blackmail, sextort, haze, bully, body-shame, or encourage others to target someone;
• make unwanted sexual or romantic advances, comments, gestures, requests, or physical contact;
• repeatedly contact someone after they decline, leave, block you, or ask you to stop;
• circumvent a block through another account, club, friend, phone number, messaging service, or in-person approach;
• pressure anyone to share contact details, location, transport, accommodation, money, images, medical information, or access to a private space;
• retaliate against someone for leaving an activity, declining contact, raising a safety concern, reporting conduct, or helping an investigation;
• coordinate dogpiling, mass messaging, malicious reviews, or false reports.

SportsPal is designed for sports and activity connections. Using it primarily to seek dates, sexual contact, or romantic attention—especially through repeated unsolicited messages—is not allowed.

6. Hate, discrimination, and extremism

Do not attack, demean, exclude, dehumanize, threaten, or promote harmful stereotypes about people based on protected or vulnerable characteristics, including race, color, ethnicity, nationality, national origin, caste, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, pregnancy, age, disability, serious disease, body type, or immigration status.

Prohibited content and conduct include slurs used to attack, hate symbols used to praise or intimidate, claims of inherent inferiority, segregation or exclusion campaigns, praise or support for hate organizations, and incitement or glorification of violence against a protected group.

SportsPal does not permit terrorist, violent extremist, organized-hate, or criminal organizations to recruit, praise, fundraise, coordinate, or promote propaganda through the Service. Neutral reporting, condemnation, prevention, or legitimate educational discussion may be allowed when the context is clear and the material is not needlessly graphic.

7. Violence, dangerous conduct, and illegal activity

Do not threaten, encourage, coordinate, glorify, or provide instructions for violence or serious harm. Graphic gore, real injury imagery shared to shock, animal cruelty, and content celebrating assault or death are prohibited.

Legitimate sports—including combat sports—are allowed when conducted with informed consent, appropriate rules, lawful supervision where required, suitable protective equipment, and a proper venue. “It was part of the game” does not excuse assault, retaliation, reckless play, or conduct outside accepted rules.

You must not use SportsPal to facilitate or promote:

• weapons, explosives, illegal drugs, controlled substances, stolen or counterfeit goods, human trafficking, sexual services, or other unlawful goods or services;
• the sale or distribution of prescription medicines, unapproved supplements, anabolic steroids, prohibited performance-enhancing substances, nicotine or vaping products, or alcohol;
• dangerous challenges, extreme weight cutting, deliberate dehydration, unsafe training, or activities that reasonably require qualifications you do not have;
• gambling, unlicensed lotteries, match-fixing, bribery, or betting schemes connected to activities or tournaments;
• trespass, vandalism, theft, fraud, hacking, malicious software, or evasion of venue, competition, safety, or legal controls;
• promotion, instruction, or encouragement of suicide, self-harm, disordered eating, or compulsive exercise that is likely to cause harm.

Supportive discussion about recovery, mental health, body image, or personal experience is allowed when it does not instruct, glorify, or pressure harmful behavior. If someone appears to face imminent harm, contact emergency services; SportsPal is not a crisis service.

8. Sexual content and exploitation

SportsPal is not a sexual-content or adult-services platform. The following are prohibited in public and private areas of the Service:

• nudity, pornography, explicit sexual content, fetish content, sexual solicitation, or offers of compensated sexual or romantic arrangements;
• non-consensual intimate imagery, hidden-camera material, sexual deepfakes, or threats to create or share such material;
• sexual harassment, coercion, grooming, exploitation, sextortion, or trafficking;
• any sexualized content involving or appearing to involve a minor.

Breastfeeding, health education, or other clearly non-sexual material may be considered in context, but it must remain relevant, respectful, and suitable for the Service.

9. Privacy, consent, and location safety

Protect your own information and the privacy of others. Do not post, request, buy, sell, expose, or threaten to expose another person’s private or sensitive information without authority and consent.

This includes home or work addresses, private phone numbers or emails, live or historical precise location, private routes, passwords, authentication codes, government IDs, financial details, medical information, private communications, and identifying information about relatives or household members.

• Ask before photographing, recording, livestreaming, tagging, or posting identifiable media of another person. Respect a request not to be recorded or to remove content.
• Do not publish screenshots or recordings of private chats without permission unless reasonably necessary for a good-faith safety report or legal process.
• Do not use route, map, GPX, live GPS, check-in, participant, calendar, SportsPal Pass, or QR information to track, surveil, identify, or approach someone without permission.
• Do not publicly expose a private residence, a vulnerable person’s routine, a hidden meeting point, or a route that reveals sensitive locations.
• Do not scan, copy, share, alter, or misuse another person’s SportsPal Pass, QR code, roster information, or participant data.

See the Privacy Policy for how SportsPal processes personal information.

10. Honest information and health claims

Information that affects whether someone joins, pays, travels, brings equipment, or accepts a physical risk must be accurate, current, and not misleading.

Do not fabricate attendance, ratings, achievements, qualifications, affiliations, certifications, results, availability, routes, weather, venue access, participant limits, safety measures, or the identity of a host or organizer.

Do not present yourself as a doctor, physiotherapist, first-aid provider, coach, guide, instructor, referee, safeguarding officer, or other qualified professional unless the claim is accurate and lawful. Do not diagnose users, promise medical outcomes, claim that an activity cures or treats a condition, or spread dangerous health or performance misinformation.

Disclose material conflicts of interest, sponsorships, commissions, business affiliations, and paid promotion where relevant. AI-generated or materially altered media must not be used to impersonate someone, fake an event, fabricate evidence, or mislead users about real conditions.

11. Activities and host responsibilities

Creating an activity makes you responsible for the accuracy of the listing and for the organizer actions you control. Hosts must:

• provide the correct sport, date, local time, meeting point, expected duration, format, intensity or skill level, capacity, accessibility information, and contact method;
• clearly disclose all required costs, deposits, venue charges, membership requirements, equipment, eligibility rules, waivers, and material conditions before a user joins or commits;
• identify foreseeable material hazards, such as traffic, difficult terrain, water, altitude, heat, cold, poor lighting, contact play, remote areas, or specialized equipment;
• use a venue or route lawfully and obtain any permission, booking, permit, insurance, licensed supervision, or emergency provision required for the activity;
• be present and reasonably reachable at the activity, or clearly name a responsible adult who will act as the on-site host;
• keep participants informed of material changes, delays, cancellations, weather decisions, capacity changes, and venue instructions as early as reasonably possible;
• apply published rules consistently, respond appropriately to safety concerns, and avoid pressuring anyone to continue;
• never create fake, duplicate, misleading, impossible, or bait-and-switch activities.

A host must not claim that SportsPal organizes, supervises, certifies, insures, endorses, or guarantees an activity unless SportsPal has expressly confirmed that in writing.

12. Clubs and tournaments

Club administrators and tournament organizers must act transparently and in the legitimate interests of the community they manage. In addition to the host rules above, they must:

• have authority to create or represent the club, team, competition, venue, badge, logo, or governing body;
• identify the responsible organizer, purpose, affiliations, participation criteria, divisions, schedule, rules, fees, prize terms, cancellation terms, and any required waivers;
• obtain permission before adding someone to a roster or publishing their name, image, eligibility information, statistics, or contact details;
• protect participant and roster data and use it only for legitimate administration of the relevant club or tournament;
• apply eligibility, discipline, selection, scoring, tie-breaking, and prize rules consistently and in good faith;
• keep records, results, organizer claims, and safety information accurate;
• not seize, repurpose, sell, or materially change a club or community in a way that deceives existing members;
• not use administrator powers to retaliate, harass, manipulate results, conceal safety concerns, or suppress good-faith criticism.

Listing a club or tournament does not make SportsPal its organizer, governing body, insurer, safeguarding authority, or dispute adjudicator. Organizers remain responsible for compliance with applicable sport, venue, tax, licensing, consumer, safeguarding, and event laws.

13. Safe participation, routes, and venues

Everyone must use reasonable judgment, follow applicable laws and venue rules, respect land and property, and avoid creating preventable danger for others.

Participants

• Choose activities suited to your health, ability, experience, and equipment. If needed, obtain medical or professional advice before participating.
• Follow legitimate safety instructions, accepted rules of the sport, traffic laws, trail rules, environmental restrictions, and directions from venue staff or emergency personnel.
• Do not participate while impaired by alcohol, illegal drugs, misused medication, extreme fatigue, or another condition that makes your participation unsafe.
• Stop when injured, unwell, unsafe, or unable to continue. Never shame or pressure someone for stopping, choosing a lower intensity, refusing contact, or leaving.
• For a first meeting, prefer a public, lawful, well-lit location; tell a trusted person your plan; arrange independent transport; and leave whenever you feel unsafe.

Routes, GPX files, and outdoor activities

• Do not knowingly publish a route that enters private, closed, military, protected, restricted, or dangerously inaccessible land.
• Describe known material hazards and avoid presenting a user-created route, weather forecast, elevation figure, map, or direction as guaranteed accurate or safe.
• Do not manipulate GPS or route data to deceive users, fabricate performance, hide a safety issue, or misrepresent where an activity occurs.
• Respect closures, wildlife, local communities, trail etiquette, and “leave no trace” principles. Do not encourage environmental damage or unauthorized access.
• Carry appropriate navigation, water, clothing, lighting, first-aid supplies, communication, and emergency equipment for the conditions; do not rely on the app as your only safety tool.

14. Attendance, sportsmanship, and integrity

Respect other people’s time, effort, safety, and fair opportunity to participate.

• Join only when you genuinely intend and are reasonably able to attend. If plans change, leave or cancel as early as possible.
• Do not repeatedly no-show, arrive materially late without notice, hold scarce places you do not intend to use, or cancel activities at the last minute without a legitimate reason.
• Hosts must not inflate attendance, create fake participants, manipulate capacity, or repeatedly cancel to redirect users elsewhere.
• Follow the published format and treat teammates, opponents, coaches, referees, volunteers, and venue staff respectfully.
• No intentional injury, violent retaliation, abusive sideline behavior, hazing, sabotage, equipment tampering, or reckless disregard for agreed safety rules.
• No cheating, fake results, falsified eligibility, roster manipulation, identity substitution, collusion, bribery, match-fixing, performance-data manipulation, or abuse of rankings and recommendations.
• Feedback and reviews must reflect a genuine experience. Do not trade, buy, coerce, retaliate through, or coordinate false feedback.

SportsPal may restrict joining or hosting features when repeated attendance or integrity failures materially harm other users, even if each individual incident would not justify an account ban.

15. Money, promotion, scams, and spam

SportsPal may be used to organize genuine sports and activity experiences, including lawful activities with transparently disclosed venue or participation costs. It must not be used mainly as an advertising board, lead list, or scheme for extracting money or attention.

You must not:

• hide, change, or invent mandatory costs, deposits, recurring charges, refund restrictions, commissions, or financial relationships;
• request money through deception, impersonation, urgency, romance, investment claims, fake emergencies, fake charities, fake prizes, or unsupported guarantees;
• promote pyramid schemes, multi-level marketing, get-rich-quick offers, crypto or investment schemes, betting services, or unlicensed fundraising;
• send bulk, repetitive, irrelevant, unsolicited, or automated messages, invitations, links, referral codes, promotions, or social-media requests;
• post phishing pages, malware, misleading links, QR codes, or files designed to steal information or compromise a device or account;
• scrape or harvest users for sales, recruitment, political campaigning, fundraising, or off-platform marketing;
• sell access to an account, club, community, roster, ranking, verification marker, or administrative role.

Reasonable promotion by a legitimate host, coach, venue, or club may be allowed when it is directly relevant to a genuine SportsPal activity, accurate, proportionate, and clearly commercial. Unsolicited promotion in private messages is not allowed.

16. Content and intellectual property

Post only content you created or have the right and permission to use. Do not infringe copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, database, image, music, broadcast, or other rights.

• Do not copy another person’s profile, photos, messages, route, event description, logo, badge, club identity, or tournament material without authority.
• Do not falsely suggest sponsorship, verification, official status, or affiliation with SportsPal or another organization.
• Obtain consent before posting identifiable people, private conversations, results tied to a person, or media from a private activity.
• Do not remove ownership notices, watermarks, attribution, safety warnings, or material context in a deceptive way.

SportsPal may remove or restrict content in response to a sufficiently specific rights complaint. Intellectual-property notices should follow the process in the Terms of Use.

17. Platform and account integrity

Do not undermine the Service, its security, its moderation, or another user’s access.

Prohibited conduct includes:

• ban or block evasion, account trading, unauthorized account access, credential sharing, or deceptive multiple accounts;
• bots, scripts, scraping, unauthorized automation, mass account creation, artificial engagement, or manipulation of ranking, recommendations, attendance, reactions, reports, results, or metrics;
• probing, attacking, overloading, reverse engineering, bypassing technical limits, distributing malicious code, or exploiting a vulnerability;
• using information obtained through SportsPal to build unauthorized profiles, databases, surveillance tools, competing datasets, or facial-recognition systems;
• filing fraudulent, discriminatory, retaliatory, coordinated, or manifestly unfounded reports or appeals;
• encouraging or helping another person to violate these Guidelines.

If you discover a security vulnerability, do not exploit or publicly expose it. Report it privately to sportspalapplication@gmail.com with the subject “Security Report.”

18. Reporting, blocking, and emergencies

Use the available safety controls

• Report: use the report option available on the relevant profile, activity, post, club, tournament, route, or conversation. Choose the closest accurate reason and provide useful context.
• Block: block a user when you do not want further contact. Blocking may limit future interaction but cannot erase content already seen, copied, or shared.
• Leave: leave a conversation, activity, club, tournament, venue, or real-world interaction whenever you feel unsafe. You do not owe anyone continued participation.
• Email: if the relevant in-app option is unavailable, email sportspalapplication@gmail.com with the subject “Safety Report” or, for allegedly illegal content, “Illegal Content Notice.”

Include the username, activity or community, date, approximate time, what happened, and any available links or screenshots. Share only what is reasonably necessary; never email passwords, authentication codes, complete payment information, government IDs, or unrelated sensitive data.

Reports are handled as confidentially as reasonably possible, but information may be shared when needed to investigate, protect people, comply with law, respond to legal process, or give an affected user fair notice. A report does not guarantee a particular outcome.

Do not threaten the reported person, investigate them yourself, publish allegations, organize mass reports, or retaliate. Preserve relevant evidence and let SportsPal or the competent authorities assess it.

19. How enforcement works

SportsPal may review reports, relevant content and context, account and technical signals, prior actions, and information lawfully provided by users, organizers, platforms, or authorities. SportsPal does not promise to pre-screen every item, monitor every activity, or read every conversation.

When deciding what action is appropriate, SportsPal may consider the nature and severity of the conduct, actual or likely harm, intent, context, credibility of available information, user history, repeated behavior, attempts to evade detection, impact on affected people, cooperation, and legal requirements.

Possible actions include:

• taking no action where information is insufficient or no rule was violated;
• education, a reminder, or a warning;
• removing, limiting access to, labeling, or reducing the visibility or recommendation of content;
• limiting messages, invitations, joins, hosting, posts, routes, passes, club or tournament administration, or other features;
• removing an activity, route, post, club, tournament, roster, result, badge, or administrative role;
• temporarily suspending or permanently terminating an account;
• preventing account recreation or restricting related accounts, devices, or identifiers where lawful and reasonably necessary;
• preserving evidence, notifying affected users or organizations, or referring a matter to competent authorities where required or reasonably necessary for safety or legal compliance.

There is no guaranteed three-strike process. SportsPal may issue a warning for a lower-risk first incident, but may act immediately for severe, credible, illegal, evasive, or repeated conduct. Child exploitation, credible violent threats, sexual violence, stalking, doxxing, trafficking, terrorism, severe fraud, malicious platform attacks, and serious real-world harm may result in immediate permanent action and referral.

SportsPal may consider relevant off-platform conduct when it is connected to the Service or indicates a credible risk to users. Failure to act in one case does not approve the conduct or prevent future action. Enforcement may vary when context or legal obligations differ.

20. Appeals

If SportsPal removes content, limits a feature, suspends an activity or community, removes an administrative role, or suspends or terminates an account, the affected user may appeal through any appeal method provided in the notice or by emailing sportspalapplication@gmail.com with the subject “Content or Account Appeal.”

Include the account email, username, affected content or decision, date of the notice, and a concise explanation with relevant context. Do not send duplicate appeals or unnecessary sensitive information.

SportsPal may verify identity and may reject abusive, fraudulent, duplicate, or insufficiently specific appeals. Where applicable law requires it, an eligible appeal will receive timely, diligent, non-discriminatory, and non-arbitrary review, with human review where legally required.

For eligible users in the European Union, the complaint and remedy rights described in the Terms of Use apply, including a free internal complaint route for at least six months after a qualifying platform decision where the Digital Services Act requires it.

21. Updates and contact

SportsPal may update these Guidelines as the Service, community risks, law, or platform requirements change. The current version will be posted with a revised effective or “last updated” date. Material changes will receive additional notice where required.

Questions, safety reports, illegal-content notices, and appeals may be sent to:

SportsPal – Local Activities
Email: sportspalapplication@gmail.com
Website: https://sportspalapp.com

Related documents: Terms of Use · Privacy Policy

End of Community Guidelines