Last updated: 08.09.2026
These Terms of Service (the "Terms") are a legally binding agreement between you and [Company Legal Name] ("The Modern", "we", "us", "our"), the operator of the website at [yourdomain] and its related services, applications and content (together, the "Service"). By accessing or using the Service, creating an account, or purchasing a subscription, you confirm that you have read, understood and agree to be bound by these Terms and by our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy, which are incorporated by reference. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.
1. Who may use the Service
You must be at least 16 years old, or the age of digital consent where you live if that is higher, to create an account or purchase a subscription. By using the Service you represent that you meet this requirement and that you are legally able to enter into a binding contract. If you use the Service on behalf of an organisation, you represent that you are authorised to bind that organisation to these Terms.
2. The Service
The Modern is an AI-assisted digital newspaper. Our journalism is researched, drafted and checked with the help of automated systems under human editorial oversight, as described on our How We Use AI page and governed by our Editorial Standards.
The Service offers:
- Free access: reading articles that are not marked premium, searching the site, and subscribing to our newsletter.
- Free accounts: in addition, saving articles, following topics for a personalised feed, and commenting.
- Premium subscriptions: in addition, access to all articles including premium-only journalism, as described on the Pricing page.
We may add, change, suspend or discontinue any feature of the Service at any time. Where a change materially reduces what a paid subscription includes, Section 5.7 applies.
3. Accounts
3.1 You must provide accurate, current and complete information when creating an account and keep it up to date. Accounts are personal; you may not share, sell or transfer your account or your login credentials.
3.2 You are responsible for keeping your password confidential and for all activity that occurs under your account, whether or not authorised by you. Notify us immediately at legal@[yourdomain] if you suspect unauthorised use. We send an email alert on new logins so that you can act quickly.
3.3 New accounts must verify their email address. Accounts that remain unverified are deleted automatically after 48 hours, except accounts that hold an active paid subscription.
3.4 We may suspend or terminate your account, with or without notice, if you breach these Terms, if we are required to by law, or if your use creates risk or possible legal exposure for us, other users or third parties. You may close your account at any time from your account page or by contacting us.
4. Subscriptions, billing and cancellation
4.1 Plans and prices. Premium subscriptions are offered on a monthly or yearly basis at the prices shown on the Pricing page at the time of purchase. Prices are stated inclusive of applicable VAT or sales tax unless the Pricing page says otherwise.
4.2 Payment. Payments are processed by Stripe, Inc. and its affiliates ("Stripe"). By subscribing you authorise Stripe to charge your chosen payment method for the subscription fee and any applicable taxes. We do not receive or store your full card details. Stripe's own terms and privacy policy apply to the payment transaction.
4.3 Automatic renewal. Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period, at the then-current price for your plan, until you cancel. We will notify you by email in advance of any price increase that would apply to your renewal.
4.4 Cancellation. You may cancel at any time from your Subscription page or through Stripe's billing portal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current paid period; you keep premium access until then. There are no cancellation fees.
4.5 Plan changes. Upgrades take effect immediately and the difference is charged on a prorated basis. Downgrades take effect at the end of the current billing period.
4.6 Failed payments. If a renewal payment fails, Stripe will retry it. If payment continues to fail, your subscription will expire and your account will revert to a free account. You remain liable for any unpaid fees for periods in which you had premium access.
4.7 Refunds and right of withdrawal. Because premium access begins immediately on purchase, you expressly request and consent to immediate performance and acknowledge that, where a statutory right of withdrawal for digital services exists, you lose that right once access has begun. Except where required by applicable consumer law, subscription fees are non-refundable and we do not provide refunds or credits for partial periods, unused time, or downgrades. Nothing in this section limits any non-waivable statutory right you have as a consumer, including any right to a refund where the Service was not provided as described.
4.8 Promotions. Trial or promotional offers are subject to the specific terms stated with the offer, which prevail over this Section 4 to the extent of any conflict. Unless stated otherwise, a trial converts to a paid subscription at the end of the trial period unless cancelled before then.
5. Content and disclaimers
5.1 General information only. The Service provides news and information for general interest. Nothing on the Service constitutes legal, financial, investment, tax, medical, or other professional advice, and you should not rely on it as such. Always seek qualified professional advice before acting on anything you read here.
5.2 Accuracy. We work to high editorial standards and correct errors promptly under our Corrections Policy. However, no publication is error-free, and content may become outdated. Except as expressly stated in these Terms and to the extent permitted by law, we make no representation or warranty that content is accurate, complete, current or fit for any particular purpose.
5.3 AI-assisted production. You acknowledge that content on the Service may be generated in whole or in part by automated systems, reviewed under the process described on our How We Use AI page. Bylines on AI-produced articles identify the editorial voice responsible for that coverage and are not a representation that a named human individual wrote the text.
5.4 Third-party content and links. The Service may include content from, or links to, third-party sources. We are not responsible for the content, accuracy, availability or practices of third parties.
5.5 Opinion. Opinion pieces are clearly labelled and reflect the view of the author, not that of The Modern.
5.6 Comments and user content. Comments are the responsibility of the person who posts them and do not represent our views. We do not pre-screen comments and are not liable for them, but we may remove any comment at our discretion.
5.7 Material changes to a paid service. If we materially reduce what your paid subscription includes during a paid period, you may cancel and, where the reduction affects the remainder of a period you have already paid for, request a pro rata refund for that remainder.
6. Permitted and prohibited use
6.1 You may: read the Service for personal, non-commercial purposes; share links to our articles; and quote brief excerpts with clear attribution and a link back to the original article, in a manner consistent with fair dealing or fair use.
6.2 You may not, and may not permit or assist anyone else to:
- copy, reproduce, republish, distribute, sell, or otherwise exploit any part of the Service or its content at scale or for commercial purposes without our prior written permission;
- access the Service by automated means, including crawling, scraping, spidering or bulk downloading, except for search engines that comply with our robots directives and do not reproduce content;
- use any content from the Service to train, fine-tune, evaluate or otherwise develop any machine learning or artificial intelligence model or dataset, without our prior written licence;
- circumvent, disable or interfere with the paywall, access controls, rate limits, or any other security or technical measure;
- share account credentials, or use another person's account;
- post or transmit anything unlawful, defamatory, threatening, harassing, hateful, obscene, infringing, or that contains malware, spam or unsolicited advertising;
- impersonate any person or entity, or misrepresent your affiliation with any person or entity;
- interfere with the operation of the Service, place an unreasonable load on our infrastructure, or probe, scan or test its vulnerability without authorisation;
- remove or alter any copyright notice, byline, or other proprietary marking;
- use the Service in breach of any applicable law or regulation.
6.3 We reserve the right to investigate suspected violations, to take any technical or legal action we consider appropriate, and to report unlawful activity to law enforcement.
7. User content and comments
7.1 You retain ownership of the comments and other material you submit to the Service ("User Content").
7.2 By submitting User Content you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, sublicensable licence to host, store, reproduce, display, distribute and otherwise use your User Content in connection with operating and promoting the Service, in any media now known or later developed. You waive, to the extent permitted by law, any moral rights in User Content that would prevent this use.
7.3 You represent and warrant that you own or have the necessary rights to your User Content, that it does not infringe the rights of any third party, and that it complies with these Terms and applicable law.
7.4 We may remove, edit or refuse any User Content at our sole discretion and without notice, and may suspend or ban users who repeatedly or seriously breach this Section.
8. Intellectual property
8.1 The Service and all of its content, including articles, headlines, images, graphics, design, software, data, and the "The Modern" name and logos, are owned by [Company Legal Name] or its licensors and are protected by copyright, trademark, database and other intellectual property laws worldwide.
8.2 Subject to these Terms, we grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to access and view the Service for your personal, non-commercial use. All rights not expressly granted are reserved.
8.3 To request permission to reuse our content, including syndication or licensing, contact legal@[yourdomain].
9. Copyright complaints
We respect the intellectual property rights of others. If you believe that material on the Service infringes your copyright, send a notice to legal@[yourdomain] identifying the work, the material you claim is infringing and its location on the Service, your contact details, a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is not authorised, a statement under penalty of perjury that the information in the notice is accurate and that you are the owner or authorised to act on the owner's behalf, and your physical or electronic signature. We will respond to valid notices, including by removing or disabling access to the material where appropriate.
10. Privacy
Our collection and use of personal data is described in our Privacy Policy. By using the Service you acknowledge that we process personal data as described there.
11. Availability and changes to the Service
We aim to keep the Service available at all times but do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation. We may suspend the Service, in whole or in part, for maintenance, security, legal or technical reasons. We may modify or discontinue features, and may modify these Terms, as set out in Section 15.
12. Disclaimer of warranties
To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, the Service and all content are provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied or statutory, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement, accuracy, or that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure or free of errors or harmful components. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties, so some of the above may not apply to you.
13. Limitation of liability
13.1 To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, [Company Legal Name], its affiliates, and their respective directors, officers, employees, contractors and licensors will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, business, goodwill, data or opportunity, arising out of or in connection with the Service, these Terms, or any content, however caused and under any theory of liability, even if advised of the possibility of such damages.
13.2 To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, our total aggregate liability to you for all claims arising out of or in connection with the Service or these Terms will not exceed the greater of (a) the amounts you paid us in the twelve (12) months immediately before the event giving rise to the claim, and (b) one hundred (100) euros or the equivalent in local currency.
13.3 Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, for gross negligence or wilful misconduct, or for any other liability that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law. If you are a consumer, nothing in these Terms affects your statutory rights.
14. Indemnity
To the extent permitted by applicable law, you agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless [Company Legal Name] and its affiliates, officers, employees and agents from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses and expenses, including reasonable legal fees, arising out of or related to your User Content, your use of the Service, or your breach of these Terms or of any law or third-party right. This Section does not apply to consumers to the extent that applicable consumer law prohibits such an obligation.
15. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. We will post the updated Terms on this page with a new "Last updated" date. If a change is material, we will give you reasonable advance notice by email to the address on your account or by a prominent notice on the Service before it takes effect. If you do not agree to the updated Terms, you must stop using the Service and may cancel any subscription; your continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance. Changes will not apply retroactively.
16. Termination
These Terms remain in effect until terminated. You may terminate at any time by closing your account. We may terminate or suspend your access as set out in Section 3.4. On termination your licence to use the Service ends; Sections 5, 7.2, 8, 12, 13, 14, 17 and 18 and any other provision that by its nature should survive will survive.
17. Governing law and disputes
17.1 These Terms and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with them or the Service, including non-contractual disputes or claims, are governed by the laws of [Jurisdiction], without regard to its conflict of law rules.
17.2 The courts of [Jurisdiction] have exclusive jurisdiction over any such dispute, except that if you are a consumer resident in a country whose law grants you the right to bring proceedings in your local courts, or to the protection of its mandatory consumer laws, nothing in these Terms deprives you of that right or protection.
17.3 If you are a consumer in the European Union, you may also use the European Commission's online dispute resolution platform at ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr. We are not obliged to participate in alternative dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration body unless required by law.
17.4 Before starting formal proceedings, please contact us at legal@[yourdomain]; most concerns can be resolved quickly and informally.
18. General
18.1 Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy and any offer-specific terms, constitute the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Service and supersede all prior agreements.
18.2 Severability. If any provision of these Terms is held invalid or unenforceable, it will be enforced to the maximum extent permissible and the remaining provisions will remain in full force.
18.3 No waiver. Our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of our right to do so later.
18.4 Assignment. You may not assign or transfer these Terms or your account. We may assign these Terms to an affiliate or a successor in connection with a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, and will notify you where required by law.
18.5 Force majeure. We are not liable for any failure or delay caused by events beyond our reasonable control.
18.6 Language. These Terms are written in English. Any translation is provided for convenience only; the English version prevails.
18.7 Notices. We may give you notice by email to the address on your account or by posting on the Service. You may give us notice at the contact details below.
Contact
[Company Legal Name]
[Address]
Email: legal@[yourdomain]