Referral program terms

These terms add to our Terms of Service. By sharing your referral link you agree to them.

1. Who can take part

Anyone with a The Hindu Story account in good standing who is 18 or older (or whose parent or guardian manages the account). Our staff and contractors can't earn. Creators with a separate creator agreement earn under that agreement instead.

2. Your link and who counts as your referral

• Your link is thehindustory.com/s/<your code>, shown on your account page and in our emails.
• A Referred Subscriber is a new reader who signs up through your link within 30 days of clicking it.
• It doesn't count if the person: was already a reader in the last 12 months; is you, or shares your email, payment card, account or home address; or signed up through another person's or a creator's link first.

3. What you earn

• 50% of the subscription payments we actually receive from each Referred Subscriber during the 12 months after their first payment.
• That includes family members they add to their plan.
• It's calculated after refunds, chargebacks, discounts and taxes.
• Nothing is earned during the free week, or on payments after those 12 months.

4. When it's earned

• A Referred Subscriber's payments count once they've been subscribed for 15 days, if they haven't been refunded or charged back by then. After that, each payment counts as soon as we receive it.
• If a payment is refunded or charged back later, we take that amount off your future earnings.

5. How you're paid

• When and where: we pay your earned balance monthly, to the payout email you give us on your account page, by a payout method we offer at the time.
• Minimum: we pay once your earned balance is $10 or more. Smaller balances carry over to the next payout.
• Payout details: if you don't give us payout details within 12 months of earning, those earnings lapse.
• Currency: we pay in US dollars. Your provider's fees and currency conversion are yours.
• No other forms: earnings aren't paid as cash in any other form, credit or gift cards.

6. Fair sharing (please read)

You may share your link with people you know, in groups you belong to, on social media and on your own website. You may not: spam, or message people who haven't agreed to hear from you; buy ads that use “The Hindu Story” or close variants, or pose as The Hindu Story; make misleading claims about us, our price or what readers get; offer people money, rebates or gifts to sign up; or create fake or duplicate accounts, or refer yourself.

When you share publicly and earn from it, say so (for example, “I earn a small reward if you join”). The FTC requires this in the US.

7. Our rights

• Abuse: we may withhold, reverse or cancel earnings, close a referral account, or remove someone from the program if we reasonably believe these terms were broken or the program was abused.
• Tracking: our records decide what counts. If a link or cookie fails, we'll make a fair call.

8. Taxes

• Earnings are income for you, and you're responsible for any taxes.
• If you're in the US and your earnings may pass $600 in a calendar year, we may ask for a W-9 before paying, and we may issue a 1099.
• We may ask other countries' residents for similar details.

9. Changes and ending

• We may change or end the program with 30 days' notice by email.
• Earnings from payments received before the change or end date will still be paid under these terms.

10. Not a partnership

Taking part doesn't make you our employee, agent or partner, and you can't speak for The Hindu Story.

11. Questions

Email office@thehindustory.com.

Examples: $12 for each subscriber who joins on the yearly plan ($24 a year), plus $6 a year for each family member they add ($12 each); $1.50 a month for a monthly subscriber ($3 a month), for up to 12 months.

This replaces the earlier referral reward (a free month when a friend joins). Anyone who earned a free month before the program starts keeps it.