Privacy notice

What we do not collect

We do not collect your name, email, phone number, address, diagnosis, medicines, or anything you type. There are no accounts, sign ups, or forms that save your answers.

We do not use cookies. We do not use Google Analytics, advertising tools, social media pixels, or tracking that follows you to other websites.

We do not sell, rent, trade, or share personal information or health information with anyone, for money or for free.

What stays on your own device

Your browser remembers your language choice (English or Spanish) and whether you turned on larger text. This is saved only on your device. We cannot see it. You can clear it at any time by clearing your browser data for this site.

Questions you pick, checklists, and the player speed stay in your browser only while the page is open. They are gone when you close it.

The "Was this page helpful?" buttons

If you tap Yes or Not really at the bottom of a page, we save only your answer, the page address, the language, and the date. Nothing else: no name, no typed text, no IP address, no device details. We use the totals to improve pages.

Counting visits (no cookies, nothing that identifies you)

To know which pages are useful, we use Vercel Web Analytics. It counts page visits in total. It does not use cookies and does not store your IP address. For each visit it records the page address, the website that sent you (if any), your country, region and city as estimated from the network, your browser, your operating system, and your device type (phone, tablet, or computer).

To count unique visitors, Vercel makes a temporary code from the visit request. That code is thrown away after 24 hours, so visits cannot be linked to you or followed over time. We only ever see totals, such as "120 visits to the lung cancer page this week."

If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal, we do not load the visit counter at all.

Running the website

Like every website, our host (Vercel, Inc.) must receive your device's internet address (IP address) to send you the pages, pictures, and audio. Vercel may keep short technical logs to keep the service secure and working. We do not use these logs to identify anyone. Fonts, pictures, and Rosa's audio are served from our own site and Vercel storage, not from Google or other ad networks.

Search tools you choose to use

If you type a ZIP code to look for clinical trials, your ZIP code and the type of cancer on the page you are reading are sent to our server only to run that search. Our server looks up the ZIP code's location with a free public service (Zippopotam.us) and searches ClinicalTrials.gov, a public website of the National Institutes of Health. Your IP address is not passed on to them. We do not save the search.

If you type a ZIP code to find a second opinion center, it is sent to our server, which looks up its location with Zippopotam.us to show the nearest centers. It is not saved.

Links to other websites

We link to trusted groups such as the National Cancer Institute, the FDA, and support organizations. When you leave our site, their privacy rules apply, not ours.

Health privacy laws

Step by Step is an independent education project. It is not a doctor's office, hospital, or health plan, and it does not provide medical care, so it is not covered by HIPAA. We still follow the same spirit: we do not collect health information that is linked to you.

Some state laws (for example Washington's My Health My Data Act, and laws in Nevada, Connecticut, and California) give you rights over consumer health data, such as the right to know what is collected, to ask for it to be deleted, and to say no to sharing or selling. Because we do not collect or keep personal or health information that identifies you, and we never share or sell any, there is nothing tied to you for us to give back or delete. You are welcome to contact us with any request or question, and we will answer within 45 days.

Children

Step by Step is written for adults: patients, families, and caregivers. It is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from children.

Changes to this notice

If we ever change what the site collects, we will update this page and the date at the top before the change happens. We will not start collecting personal or health information without asking you first.