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Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails

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Re: Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails

#81

Post by Retric »

chrononaut wrote: post #47
stoev wrote: post #3

When Facebook banned blockchain-related ads it was understandable - they are a closed platform and can chose to accept whatever content they decide to. When Google banned blockchain-related ads it was a much more serious issue - millions of websites are supported by Google ads through AdSense and AdX. Google is the main revenue source of the vast majority of publishers on the open internet. It seems incredibly unfair…

I disagree with this, not from the moral arguments that you are making, but from the importance you're seemingly placing on this vertical. E-mail delivery and marketing services are by far the most open market of those that you've listed. For example, - Google has locked in publishers, so by banning blockchain ads, an advertiser knows their ad will never appear on a given set publishers. No way around that other than…

Mailchimp's business is specifically to get around spam filters. An ICO only email company would be almost useless without being able to leverage all the 'legitimate' traffic to lower their profile.

Re: Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails

#82

Post by hanbura »

simias wrote: post #55
tclancy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And we keep having these discussions where we all agree "It's not censorship when it's a private company" but that's starting to feel like a truism we need to push back on, because if every private company that handles mass emailing decides to stop accepting a certain type of content (let's all agree we aren't talking about child pornography as the content), that is censorship. If this story were, "T-Mobile stops all…

Email is an open infrastructure, if an consensus emerges among the existing players not to allow emails about X then you're free to start your own email service what will feel the gap. If you can't make it stick then the holy free market has spoken. Wikipedia is currently blocked in Turkey. That's censorship. Mailchimp won't let you use them to send emails about Bitcoin. That's a minor inconvenience.

If every email service prohibits a topic, that's indistinguishable from state censorship. I fail to see how only one is bad and the other isn't.

The free market isn't of any help here either. Censorship is about stopping the spread of information and ideas. What's not known can't affect the free market.

Re: Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails

#83

Post by joshribakoff »

kristianc wrote: post #68
ISL wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A middle-ground alternative might be to say, "Hey, delivering blockchain/ICO emails costs us n % more than your average email. Therefore, we will still deliver them, but at n % the usual price." It's a little like UPS/FedEx charging more for hazardous-material shipping. If n is large, it will have a similar effect without feeling like MailChimp is out to censor cryptocurrency.

The problem is that the cost of Blockchain / ICO spam does not just fall on Mailchimp as a company, it falls on MailChimp's customers, who have to suffer through reduced email deliverability (for the same cost they are already paying). Other than that, MailChimp is a private company, not the government, and can damn well serve who they want.

They could use a dedicated shard of their IP addresses for sending high risk emails.

Re: Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails

#84

Post by awj »

ISL wrote: post #49
spamizbad wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strongly disagree. A cornerstone of Mailchimp's value proposition is its email deliverability, and its one of the best in the industry at landing emails in people's inboxes. Anything that could compromise that reputation would be a huge blow to their business. ICO and blockchain emails can make spam filters go crazy, I've seen this first-hand. Mailchimp can't control how spam filters work, but it can control, in a br…

A middle-ground alternative might be to say, "Hey, delivering blockchain/ICO emails costs us n % more than your average email. Therefore, we will still deliver them, but at n % the usual price." It's a little like UPS/FedEx charging more for hazardous-material shipping. If n is large, it will have a similar effect without feeling like MailChimp is out to censor cryptocurrency.

Except it's not a pure cost thing. Delivering blockchain/ICO emails impacts the deliverability scores of everyone else routed through those same domains and IPs. It's incredibly difficult to pin that to a number, because it's hard to quantify in advance how much of an impact one customer's blockchain emails will have on your IP/domain reputation.

The only way to make it a pure n% cost is to isolate the individual customer or all blockchain-email customers to a dedicated set of IPs/domains that can have their own (probably: really shitty) reputations. At that point, it's highly likely you'll go through all that effort just to take money from people and still not be able to deliver their email due to catastrophically low reputation infrastructure.

Refusing to accept the impact to your other customers of a hot spam topic is not "censorship". People really need to stop misusing this word. Mailchimp is a business, and has every right to take reasonable steps to protect their customers. It's already pretty common for porn and get-rich-quick businesses to be refused by these services, largely for the exact same reasons.

Re: Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails

#85

Post by pbreit »

ISL wrote: post #49
spamizbad wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strongly disagree. A cornerstone of Mailchimp's value proposition is its email deliverability, and its one of the best in the industry at landing emails in people's inboxes. Anything that could compromise that reputation would be a huge blow to their business. ICO and blockchain emails can make spam filters go crazy, I've seen this first-hand. Mailchimp can't control how spam filters work, but it can control, in a br…

A middle-ground alternative might be to say, "Hey, delivering blockchain/ICO emails costs us n % more than your average email. Therefore, we will still deliver them, but at n % the usual price." It's a little like UPS/FedEx charging more for hazardous-material shipping. If n is large, it will have a similar effect without feeling like MailChimp is out to censor cryptocurrency.

It’s significantly easier to just shut down.

Re: Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails

#86

Post by aje403 »

stoev wrote: post #3

When Facebook banned blockchain-related ads it was understandable - they are a closed platform and can chose to accept whatever content they decide to. When Google banned blockchain-related ads it was a much more serious issue - millions of websites are supported by Google ads through AdSense and AdX. Google is the main revenue source of the vast majority of publishers on the open internet. It seems incredibly unfair…

It would be great if comments like yours included a disclosure of personal crypto currency holdings at the bottom

The free speech free technology bullshit is great but I personally would not hold a vendetta against a company for taking measures to prevent getting sued (or whatever their rationale is for protecting their business by doing this)

Re: Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails

#87

Post by _asciiker_ »

Sentopia.net founder here, I don't believe this is just Mailchimp, we have received a warning from Paypal entitled "Cryptocurrency warning." where it states "(...)we noticed that your activity involves the trading or transfer of crypto currency which is prohibited under our Acceptable Use Policy. As this is not permitted on the PayPal platform we ask that you cease any activity that results in the trading or transfer of crypto currency."

We are a digital marketing business.. we don't trade or transfer any crypto, so this can only be because several of our customers have sent blockchain related campaigns and the campaign title shows up on Paypal's product description on checkout. If this is the case, then it doesn't seem fair at all.

Edit: we have no plans to restrict crypto related campaigns for our current or new customers.

Re: Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails

#88

Post by joering2 »

skybrian wrote: post #63
stoev wrote: post #3

When Facebook banned blockchain-related ads it was understandable - they are a closed platform and can chose to accept whatever content they decide to. When Google banned blockchain-related ads it was a much more serious issue - millions of websites are supported by Google ads through AdSense and AdX. Google is the main revenue source of the vast majority of publishers on the open internet. It seems incredibly unfair…

Google already bans ads for firearms, fireworks, and tobacco products. There are restrictions on adult content, alcohol, gambling, drugs, and financial services [1]. They've always been more selective about what can be advertised, versus what shows up as the result of a search. The product being legal to buy has never been the standard. [1] https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/6008942?hl=e...

Just if someone is sleeping at the wheel — this is perfect opportunity to create “google for googles prohibited items”. Nothing illegal in advertising these products.

Re: Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails

#90

Post by kureikain »

I think this make sense for Mailchimp. The tweet says in 4 weeks advance which I consider long enough to migrate out.

Mailchimp also doesn't lock you in. It's easy to export contact out. I run a news letter and use Mailchimp to manage subscriptions, but sending email with SES(Export contact out to csv and call out SES). So I know how hard it's to ensure the complain, the bounce rate...

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