Five weeks. That’s how long it took The Markup — the new digitally savvy investigative publication, focused on tech accountability, that launched today — to find someone who could send out its email newsletters without violating its privacy standards.
The Markup tested and rejected eight different email providers — including the industry’s 800-pound gorilla, Mailchimp — before finally turning to Revue, a small Dutch company that agreed to custom-build a newsletter with no user-tracking features. (No one had requested the option before, apparently.)
The process ended up being longer — and more expensive — than the outlet’s founders anticipated. But then again, not much about the road to The Markup’s long-awaited launch this week has been easy.
Originally slated to launch in early 2019, The Markup was dreamed up by a journalist-programmer pair — Julia Angwin and Jeff Larson — who brought on a third cofounder, Sue Gardner, who had previously led the…
