Terms of Service

Last Updated: February 2026

Effective Date: January 2025

Welcome to The Online Kenyan, operated by The Online Knowledge Company Limited ("The OK Company," "we," "us," or "our"). These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of our website at https://www.theonlinekenyan.com and related services.

1. About Our Service

The Online Kenyan is a news aggregation platform that curates and presents news content from various Kenyan and international news sources. We enhance this content with AI-powered features including:

• Automated news summaries and daily briefs
• Text-to-speech audio conversion for accessibility
• Topic-based content organisation
• Breaking news alerts and weekly analysis
• Related content recommendations
• Live TV directory showing real-time broadcast status for Kenyan television channels

2. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using our service, you agree to be bound by these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to these Terms, please do not use our service.

We may update these Terms from time to time. We will notify users of material changes by posting a notice on our website. Your continued use of the service after such changes constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

3. User Accounts and Social Login

You may use our service without creating an account. However, some features (such as bookmarking favourite stories) require user registration through social authentication providers like Google or Twitter.

When you create an account through social login:

• We only collect the minimum information necessary to provide our services
• We use your social media account information solely to identify you and store your preferences
• We do not post to your social media accounts or access additional data without permission
• You remain responsible for maintaining the security of your social media accounts

4. Acceptable Use

You agree to use our service only for lawful purposes and in accordance with these Terms. You may not:

• Attempt to gain unauthorised access to our systems or other users' accounts
• Use automated tools (bots, scrapers) to access our content except as permitted under Section 5
• Interfere with the proper functioning of our service
• Violate any applicable laws or regulations
• Use our service to distribute malware, spam, or other harmful content
• Attempt to reverse-engineer or copy our proprietary AI algorithms or features

5. AI Content and Data Mining

5.1 Content Rights

All original content on The Online Kenyan, including AI-generated summaries, daily briefs, audio content, topic analyses, and editorial curation, is the proprietary intellectual property of The OK Company. All rights are reserved.

Aggregated news content remains the property of its original publishers. We provide brief excerpts, attribution, and direct links to original sources under fair use principles.

5.2 TDM Reservation

We assert a Text and Data Mining (TDM) reservation under the W3C TDM Reservation Protocol. This reservation is signalled via:

• The tdm-reservation: 1 HTTP response header on all pages
• The <meta name="tdm-reservation" content="1"> HTML tag
• The /.well-known/tdmrep.json discovery file

Automated text and data mining of our content for purposes such as training machine learning models is not permitted without our prior written consent.

5.3 Permitted Use: Search and Retrieval

We welcome AI-powered search and retrieval systems that help users discover our content. The following uses are permitted:

• Search indexing: Crawling and indexing our content for the purpose of serving it in search results, with proper attribution and links back to the original page
• AI-assisted search: Citing, summarising, or quoting our content in AI search results, provided the response includes attribution and a link to the source page on The Online Kenyan
• Content retrieval: Using our structured markdown endpoints (/daily/{date}/content.md) and /llms.txt for real-time content access and citation

Attribution requirement: Any use of our content must include a visible link to the original page on www.theonlinekenyan.com.

5.4 Prohibited Use

The following uses are not permitted:

• Training, fine-tuning, or otherwise using our content as input to machine learning or AI models
• Bulk scraping or systematic downloading of content beyond what is necessary for search indexing
• Reproducing substantial portions of our content without attribution or in a way that substitutes for visiting the original page
• Using our content to build competing news aggregation services

5.5 Enforcement

Unauthorised scraping, data mining, or AI training use constitutes a material breach of these Terms and may result in legal action including claims for copyright infringement, breach of contract, and injunctive relief. Our TDM rights reservation is also expressed in machine-readable formats (tdmrep.json, robots.txt directives, HTML meta tags). Failure to read or comply with these signals does not waive our rights.

5.6 Responsible Crawling

Automated systems accessing our content should follow these guidelines:

• Prefer markdown endpoints: Use /daily/{date}/content.md instead of scraping HTML pages. These are designed for machine consumption and reduce server load.
• Respect rate limits: Limit requests to 1 per second. Observe directives in our robots.txt.
• Use cache headers: Our responses include Cache-Control headers. Respect them to avoid unnecessary requests.
• Identify your bot: Use a descriptive User-Agent string so we can differentiate your crawler and provide appropriate access.

5.7 Discovery Endpoints

AI systems can discover our content through these entry points:

• /llms.txt - Site overview and content access guide
• /llms-full.txt - Today's complete story summaries
• /feed - RSS feed of daily story groups
• /rss/podcast.xml - Podcast feed
• /sitemap-index.xml - Full sitemap

6. AI Services and Third-Party Processing

Our platform uses artificial intelligence to enhance content delivery. This includes:

• Content summarisation using AI models from OpenAI and Google Gemini
• Text-to-speech conversion for audio content
• Content categorisation and topic analysis

When we process content through AI services, we send only the news content itself, not personal user data. Generated audio files may be cached on our servers for performance.

7. YouTube API Services Integration

Our Live TV directory feature uses YouTube Data API v3 to provide real-time broadcast status for Kenyan television channels. This integration:

• Checks live streaming status of news channels on YouTube
• Displays viewer counts and live indicators to users
• Provides direct links to official YouTube live streams
• Does not collect or store personal YouTube user data
• Operates under YouTube API Services Terms of Service

YouTube Data: We cache live status information (online/offline, viewer counts) for performance purposes only. No personal user data is shared with YouTube. Users who click through to watch streams are subject to YouTube's Terms of Service and Google's Privacy Policy.

Our use of YouTube API Services is governed by the YouTube API Services Terms of Service.

8. Copyright Compliance

We respect intellectual property rights. If you believe any content on our platform infringes your copyright, please contact us at info@theok.co.ke with:

• Identification of the copyrighted work
• Location of the infringing content on our site
• Your contact information
• A statement of good faith belief that use is unauthorised
• A statement of accuracy under penalty of perjury

9. Privacy and Data Protection

Your privacy is important to us. Please review our Privacy Policy for detailed information about how we collect, use, and protect your data. Key points:

• We collect minimal personal data and never sell user information
• We use cookieless analytics (Vercel Analytics), not profiling tools
• We comply with the Kenya Data Protection Act 2019 and GDPR where applicable
• Only essential cookies are used for site functionality

10. Advertising

We may display advertisements to support our service. Our advertising approach:

• Non-intrusive, contextual advertising that does not disrupt the reading experience
• No behavioural tracking or detailed user profiling for advertising purposes
• Clear labelling of sponsored or promotional content

11. Content Disclaimers

11.1 News Content Accuracy

We aggregate content from reputable sources but do not verify the accuracy of individual news stories. Always refer to original sources for the most current and complete information.

11.2 AI-Generated Content

Our AI summaries and analyses are generated automatically and may contain errors or omissions. They are intended to supplement, not replace, reading the original articles.

11.3 Sensitive Content

News content may include coverage of sensitive topics including violence, politics, and other mature themes. While we use automated systems to filter inappropriate content, parental guidance is advised for younger users.

12. Service Availability

We strive to maintain continuous service availability but cannot guarantee uninterrupted access. We may suspend or modify our service for maintenance, updates, or other operational reasons.

We reserve the right to terminate or suspend access to our service at our discretion, particularly for violations of these Terms.

13. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by Kenyan law:

• Our service is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind
• We are not liable for any indirect, incidental, or consequential damages
• Our total liability shall not exceed the amount paid by you for the service in the twelve months preceding the claim
• We are not responsible for the accuracy of third-party news content
• We are not liable for any decisions made based on AI-generated summaries

14. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless The OK Company and its officers from any claims, damages, or expenses arising from your use of our service or violation of these Terms.

15. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of Kenya. Any disputes shall be resolved in the courts of Kenya, with jurisdiction in Nairobi County.

We encourage users to contact us directly at info@theok.co.ke to resolve any issues before pursuing legal action.

16. Severability

If any provision of these Terms is found to be unenforceable, the remaining provisions shall continue in full effect.

17. Contact Information

The Online Knowledge Company Limited
Address: Langata Road, Langata, Jamhuri Heights Apartment
Nairobi 00100, Kenya
Email: info@theok.co.ke
Website: https://theok.co.ke

See also: Privacy Policy