Have you ever looked at the Terms & Conditions page on the San Francisco Chronicle's noted internet portal SFGate.com? Neither had we. Everyone knows anything below the timestamp on an article quickly becomes a quagmire of toxic comments that would make some YouTuber blush. Media watchdog Jim Romenesko plumbed those depths and found this all-caps nugget:
YOU MAY NOT ACCESS OR USE THE COVERED SITES OR ACCEPT THE AGREEMENT IF YOU ARE NOT AT LEAST 18 YEARS OLD. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH ALL OF THE PROVISIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT, DO NOT ACCESS AND/OR USE THE COVERED SITES.
The same terms of use are reflected over on the Chronicle's baffling new paywall site SFChronicle.com. So, has the Chronicle secretly hated kids all this time? No, probably not. They've got Peter Hartlaub and a whole education-focused e-Edition, after all. Most likely it's a way to cover their ass in the wake of clunky online privacy laws and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, but it sure does explain a lot about the language in those comment sections.
