faldor, the changes made were quite drastic (we hadn't reviewed and updated our previous terms in quite a while), which would make any marked up version not quite helpful.

Good find imakuni. Her parents probably pay for the electricity and she presumably has their permission and support.

"Legal folks? " You're kidding, right? It's not that hard to allow people to sign up for an account, you've already been doing it for years. You could just follow Google and Facebook and lower the age limit to 13.

At any rate, nobody reads the ToS anyway, especially kids. I've "agreed" to so many things, Google probably owns my firstborn son by now.

Seriously ? Where did you take the offense? They said that they were reviewing it (as they should*) and I most certainly haven't seen anybody kicking you off nor anybody telling you to take a hike. It obvious that you're here for the altruistic volunteering of your computer(s) free cycles. Keep it up, your computing power is still needed.
* everybody knows that these disclaimers have to exist thanks to the absolutely ridiculous law suits that can happen.

CJSL

World Community Grid: the final frontier. These are the adventures of the grid WCG. Its never-ending mission: to explore strange new methods, to seek out new cures and new solutions, to boldly crunch where no man has crunched before.

Apologies if my post offended anyone - that clearly wasn't the intention. Let me try to clarify: every contribution of computing power helps our research partners get closer to the answers. This isn't about discriminating against minors or unwelcoming their contribution, which we value so much. In fact in the last year alone, we worked with several high schools in the US and Europe to raise awareness of World Community Grid and get students involved. We see World Community Grid not just as a way for anyone to contribute to scientific discovery, but also a tool for learning and getting excited about science.

However, following a thorough and lengthy review of our previous terms of use, our lawyers deemed it necessary to introduce the new age restriction. This is a global program and in many countries around the world, 18 is considered to be the age at which an individual can enter into a legally binding contract. We understand that the new rule isn't fair to our existing volunteers who are not yet 18 years of age. Which is why, as I mentioned in my previous post, we're working with our lawyers on an exception process under which existing under-18 volunteers can continue to make their valued contributions to this program.

Let me also add this - I'm no legal expert but from what I understand, the law around this is constantly changing in several countries. For example, I believe in the US, some states have relaxed these rules, while others have tightened them. We will continue to monitor the legal situation closely as we would love to be able to lower that minimum age.