What you are buying, in plain words.

A claim is a paid listing: your name, your logo, one line of text and a link, shown on one building on the map at claimthevalley.com, and on that building’s own page.

You are buying the sign, not the building, not the drawing of it, and not any address in the real Silicon Valley. The map is an invented city. Nothing on it grants you property, tenancy, or any right anywhere else.

Every building opens at $1. You pay once, and that is the only time you pay. There is no subscription, no renewal, and nothing that charges you again.

A claim has no end date. It lasts until somebody outbids you, and if nobody does, it lasts. We will never take a building off you because a period ran out, and we will never ask you for money to keep one.

One company — counted by the domain you link to — may hold up to 3 buildings at a time.

Anyone may take a building off you by paying at least 5% more than you did. When that happens the building changes hands immediately and we email you.

You may buy it back at any time, at the price anybody else would pay: 5% above what the new holder paid. There is no reservation, no queue and no discount for having held it before — whoever pays first holds it.

Being outbid is the one and only way a claim ends. That is the whole point of the market, and it is why the price starts at a dollar. We do not refund a claim that was outbid.

Automatically and in full, without you having to ask, when we take money for a claim we cannot honour: somebody paid for the same building a moment before you, the ring had not opened, or the claim would put you over the 3-building limit.

Also if we remove your claim under clause 5 for something you could not reasonably have known was a problem. Not if we remove it for something you obviously could.

A logo you do not have the right to use. Anything illegal where we or you are. Malware, phishing, or a link that goes somewhere other than where it says. Adult material. Anything that impersonates another company, including one already on the map. Hate, harassment, or content aimed at a private individual.

Claims go live the moment you pay — nobody approves them first. That trust runs one way only: we may remove anything that breaks this clause, at any time, without notice, and we do not have to explain the decision to anyone but you.

Every number on this site is counted, never estimated. A view is recorded when your sign is actually drawn on somebody’s screen for a full second, at most once per person per hour. A click is recorded when somebody follows your link, on the same rule. We remove obvious automated traffic before counting.

We do not promise you any number of views, clicks, customers, or anything else. Nobody can. You are buying a place on a map, and what it is worth depends on how many people come to look at it.

There are no accounts and no passwords. The link in your receipt is your key: anyone holding it can edit that claim. Keep the email. If you lose it, write to us from the address you paid with and we will send you another.

We may change how the map looks, which rings are open, when new ones open, and what a claim costs to begin with. What we will not do is take a building off you for any reason other than clause 5, or charge you a second time for one you already hold.

If we ever shut the site down, every live claim is refunded in full.

Payments are handled by Stripe. We never see or hold your card details. Prices are in US dollars and shown before you pay.

The site is provided as it is. To the extent the law allows, our total liability to you for anything connected with it is capped at what you have actually paid us in the last twelve months. Nothing here limits liability for fraud, or for anything that cannot be limited by law.

Claim the Valley is run by Héctor Guedea. Contact details are here. These terms are governed by the laws of Mexico, and we will try hard to sort out any problem by email before either of us involves anybody else.