I use #Mailchimp to send my Creative Commons Attribution licensed blog posts to my email list.

Mailchimp's new terms means my CC-BY works will become input to a generative AI model.

Then the Mailchimp AI might spit out parts of those works as "suggestions" to someone writing an email with the Mailchimp website.

Their terms of service say the person using the output of their AI needs to check if the content violates copyright.

Let me say that clearer:

Mailchimp makes its customers responsible for checking for copyright infringement caused by Mailchimp's generative AI.

Dear @sphakos The business world, especially when getting to specific verticals, is not big and often are chasing the same clients! Hence, the use of mailchimp will divulge hints into your business to your competitors. #Spyware Their offloading of liability in a legally murky area should be a non-starter.
You can tell the copyright office what you think about using your copyrighted work to train AI models. You have until October 30 (extended from today).

https://copyright.gov/policy/artificial-intelligence/?ref=maginative.com

ESM

@sphakos @WarnerCrocker

What sort of retention to all these vultures expect from their ‘just the tip’ strategy? Not that they have necessarily thought it through, some total sociopaths are behind these moves, if they aren’t actually economic hit jobs.

@sphakos The latest example of @pluralistic 's enshittification: MailChimp was acquired by Intuit a couple years ago. They aren't a two-sided marketplace, but this is close enough.

I've used MailChimp for years. I guess it's time to try something else.

@sphakos

But isn't much (most?) of mailchimp's traffic some variant of ad copy, not necessarily "empty calories" but usually tredning to sanitized and sterile?

What on earth is the value proposition of training an LLM on that?

@sphakos For those of us required to use MailChimp for work, it seems there is an apparent way to opt-out of analytics and machine learning. I just had a conversation with a support rep named "Arwyn" who clued me into this page. Will it work? No idea. Do I trust Intuit? Heck no. Do I have any other options at this moment? I do not.

Here's to hoping. 🤞

https://mailchimp.com/privacy-rights/

@sphakos

For those interested, here is our stance on generative AI:

https://buttondown.email/blog/generative-ai

@sphakos

Vous trouverez là une liste de fournisseur que je suggère.

Tous orientés sur l'hygiene-numerique.
Donc le respect des personnes : vous, ... votre entreprise,... et vos destinataires !
(que vous aimez d'un amour profond....)

https://www.mon-domaine-internet-a-moi.com/Comment-Faire-Mon-Domaine-Internet-et-mon-email-explications.html

La liste est à jour.
Mais pas exhaustive : il y en a plein d'autres.

https://www.les-cris.com/pages-300-articles-de-CRIs/theme-040-Evol-generale/art-2021/cri-evolgen-211223-Hygiene-Numerique-La-liberte-commence-la-ou-s-arretent-ceux-qui-exploitent-vos-donnees-illustrations.php

@sphakos Oh no, we JUST set up MailChimp. Thanks for sharing.

Noob question, but does changing platforms necessarily mean asking everyone to subscribe again? (I'm in Europe, so GDPR compliancy is needed.)

@sphakos also #MailChimp very likely violates #GDPR & #BDSG.

#NotLegalAdvice but with #CloudAct and other shit the only reason @maxschrems or @noybeu or anyone else from the #EU haven't sued them is because noone here uses that shit.

@sphakos unfortunately I'm not surprised, it's owned by Intuit.

Thanks for the heads-up though, now I know what'll keep me busy this weekend.

@sphakos I've been switching my email away from Gmail, in part because I'm worried about Google feeding my email to its LLM. In the process I've changed my address with many mail lists I'm subscribed to, and most of them use Mailchimp.

I can't believe how rapidly this disaster is spreading.

@sphakos

If I know that mailchimp is using stolen goods, and continue to use it, then it's as if I am a fence for those goods.

But it doesn't absolve the thief, any more than burglars telling their fence that they're not liable.

Not that laws are always that logical, especially when corporations are the thieves

@cricketcrocker

@sphakos Throwing in a mention for Sendy which I have used with my newsletters for nearly seven years now - https://sendy.co/

You self-host the newsletter CMS and connect one of several services (Amazon SES, Sendgrid, Elastic Mail, or Mailjet) to deliver the emails.

They also have an "anonymous tracking" feature that aggregates open/click rates without reporting individual reader activity. Almost unheard of in this space.