In late October, MailChimp updated their terms of service. Fair enough, and its Acceptable Use is pretty standard: “Please don’t use Mailchimp to distribute anything offensive, to promote anything illegal, or to harass anyone.” All well and good. They spell out a few other businesses that offer services, products, or content that may be considered questionable, and the list is there, although it’s pretty much the usual offending suspects. Again, fair enough and we certain fall far outside of any of those categories and practices, so all good.

But wait! There’s more!

Isn’t there always…

Just when you thought that the tech verticals of Silicon Valley were not in lockstep – or fast approaching that point – the Chimp also points out that “Mailchimp uses Google Maps and YouTube to provide certain features of the Service, and, as a result, we are contractually obligated to make our Members aware of certain terms related to the use of such features. Therefore, you acknowledge and agree that by signing up for an account and using the Service, you are also bound by the Google Maps/Google Earth Additional Terms of Service and the YouTube Terms of Service (including the Google Privacy Policy).”

Which means that, should you decide to continue to use MailChimp, you ultimately answer to Google.

Is this the coming pattern, or to quote Jeff Bridges in the movie White Squall, “If we don’t have order, we have nothing. Where we go one, we go all.”

In case you were unaware, Google/YouTube has been deplatforming voices and opinions with whom they do not agree/are not in lockstep with the talking points to which the company adheres – and prefer that users of the platform subscribe to their points of view as well. One especially catches the platform’s attention if one has a large number of subscribers. Same holds for Twitter (Twitter is running a blackmail operation — cooperate or no traffic for you) and the rest of the Social Media cartel. Which may account for the steep rise in popularity of Twitter alternative Parler (‘Awakened a sleeping giant’: Parler jumps to most popular app as conservatives rally support to leave Twitter and Facebook), where one can, according to their home page, “speak freely and express yourself openly, without fear of being “deplatformed” for your views.”

You using Skype or Zoom these days? As we’ve said many times, no one stays on top forever, and that whole ‘you are the product/we are the masters of the universe’ concept may need a bit of revision.

Still, we do wonder how long it’ll be before Gmail starts censoring correspondence as well.

New service coming soon, and if you’re considering changing yours as well, we wanted to share this list of MailChimp alternatives, as well as one from our friends at Sam.ai. As for the delay, we had been dealing with the aftermath of the release of the new iOS for the iPhone and the Apple trick of hobbling the phone/draining the battery in case you needed that extra nudge towards acquiring their latest and greatest. Note to self: try wiping your phone and doing a clean reinstall. All good so far in these quarters and apologies to Apple stockholders on the list.

MailChimp is far from the only game in town, and same goes for Twitter and even the seemingly all-mighty, all-knowing Google, and do remember that alternatives include DuckDuckGo, StartPage, and if you’re looking for an alt browser, check out the secure Brave browser. In fact, here’s a list of 30 Cool Alternative Web Browsers You Didn’t Know of | 2020 Edition

We do like to check out different offerings and services, having always been something of an early adopter. Case in point being TikTok when it first hit and which, for some reason, almost immediately set off our red flags. We quickly exited, not to be pursued by a bear or just so many more trackers.

The Chimp et al may have had their day, but at this juncture, out of principle, it’s hard to ignore or abide by the dictates of the 300-pound gorilla in the room. Onward and forward.