When submitting an extension to the Chrome Web Store you’re asked for a written justification for why it needs to run against the sites/URLs specified in the manifest. I’m curious how closely anyone at Google examines these; if this is such a clear ToS violation then maybe it shouldn’t have been approved?

(Edit: I’m not asserting that it is in fact a violation, but that its having been approved suggests it didn’t seem like one to the Web Store folks, at least, and maybe Medium should have addressed this by trying to get it removed rather than banning the user.)