Rules

One person can post to The Mic at a time. The person paying the most is that person.

Highest bid holds the mic. Pay more than whoever is currently holding it and it becomes yours immediately. You then keep it until somebody pays more than you. There is no timer and no queue.

The opening bid on an unheld mic is $1. To take it from somebody you must beat their bid by at least $1.

How long you keep it is not something we can promise. It might be a month. It might be ninety seconds. That is the deal you are accepting, and it is the only thing you are accepting — nobody can take the mic without paying more than you did.

Your bid is authorised, not charged, when you submit it. We capture the money only at the moment your bid actually takes the mic. If somebody beats you in the seconds between, the authorisation is released and you are never charged. You may see a pending amount on your statement for a day or two; it disappears on its own.

Winning bids are final and non-refundable, for any reason — including being outbid a minute later, changing your mind, or having your run ended under the content policy below.

Payments are processed by Stripe. We never see your card details. Your receipt comes from Stripe.

No part of your payment is ever paid out to a previous holder. The house keeps 100%.

When you take the mic we email your posting link. That link is your only credential — there is no account and no password. Keep it. If you lose it, email maxmontes73@gmail.com from the address you paid with and we will reissue it by hand.

While you hold the mic you can post text, images and video, and edit your profile: name, handle, description, picture and a link. Clicks on that link are counted, and shown publicly along with view counts and the resulting CPM.

Posts are up to 500 characters, up to 30 an hour, with uploads up to 4 MB. There are no replies, comments or reactions anywhere on the site.

The moment you are outbid, your posting link stops working and everything you posted is archived permanently at a fixed URL. Archived posts are never deleted and can never be edited.

You are being handed unmoderated write access to somebody else’s homepage. The following is prohibited, and this list is not exhaustive:

• ·Anything illegal under US law.
• ·Sexual content involving minors, in any form, real or generated. This is reported to NCMEC and to law enforcement without exception.
• ·Doxxing — publishing private information about a person: home address, phone number, workplace, identity documents, private communications.
• ·Targeted harassment of, or incitement against, any person or group.
• ·Threats of violence, and encouragement of violence or self-harm.
• ·Links to malware, phishing pages, or credential-harvesting sites.
• ·Impersonating a real person or organisation.
• ·Content that violates Stripe's restricted business list, including anything promoting regulated or illegal goods, adult services, or financial fraud.
• ·Spam: unsolicited bulk advertising, engagement farming, undisclosed paid promotion of scams.

Revocation for prohibited content ends your run with no refund. We can end any reign instantly and at our sole discretion. When we do, your posts are hidden, the reign is marked revoked on the leaderboard, and the mic goes back on the market at the opening bid.

We can also delete an individual post without ending your run. We do not have to warn you first, and we do not owe you anything back.

If you think a revocation was a mistake, email maxmontes73@gmail.com. We will read it. We are not obliged to reverse it.

It is not a lottery, a raffle, or a game of chance. There is no draw and no prize. You pay a known amount for a known thing: the mic, from the moment you pay until somebody pays more. Losing bidders are never charged at all.

Posts are the responsibility of the person who made them, not of The Mic. We store the email address Stripe collects, your profile, what you paid, and view and click counts.

We may change these rules. Changes apply to bids placed after they are published.

Take the mic →