Hoist the Colors

When we started re-building our mailing lists weeks ago, we discovered that a very simple setting in our ad campaign was blocking our attempts to interoperate with the system despite the fact we were paying for the service. When we sent traffic to our site, we got no signups. When we sent traffic to a form provided by the ad platform, suddenly we were getting dozens of signups a day. This was great.

For the ad platform. Not us.

The reason this happened is something called a “webview.” This technology is used by Big Tech to open URLs (web sites) in a not-browser that separates users like you from standard tools like the address bar, the SSL lock that indicates a secure connection, cookies, privacy features, history, bookmarks and so forth. Webviews break sites like mine on purpose so the Big Tech platform looks like the better, safer option.

You will note that almost all of these companies have payment options now. What better way to make your option look better than to break your competition’s?

Webviews either fail outright or create enormous hassles for customers who are attempting to buy something. Credit card numbers must be tediously entered again and again. Email platforms then interfere with the delivery of products. Future purchases and logins start with everything erased, meaning customers must perform the same actions over and over again, tap by tap. While all of this is going on, the secure connection we worked so hard to provide our subscribers is either compromised or broken entirely, and even if it isn’t you can’t see if you’re on our site at all because you have no address bar and no secure connection indicator.

The results are disastrous for creative people like me. Thousands are wasted on ads that don’t perform. Dozens if not hundreds of email newsletters go out week after week, only to be dumped into invisible folders users never see. Libraries of books and entire catalogs of products painstakingly made for the enjoyment of our customers go unsold, largely because there is no way for us to show them to anyone. We are consistently blocked from reaching our own subscribers day after day, week after week while our reserves dwindle and our work is undone. These companies each forcibly intercede on their own behalf to disrupt conversations between businesses like mine and my own customers until they get their cut.

That ends right now.

Starting March 9, 2026, all ten of my web properties will begin isolating themselves from the rest of the web. Big Tech IP ranges known for scraping, automated abuse and interference with our logging systems will be permanently blocked at the router. We will introduce language into our terms of service forbidding such companies from accessing any of our sites for any reason. We will conduct an internal audit to remove any remaining interoperability between our network and theirs.

We are considering a “most favored referer” policy that will direct all guests to a gateway where they will need a daily keyword for access. That same gateway will also block every attempt to reach our properties without such a keyword. We will forever abandon search optimization or social media marketing beyond the content itself. You will find no more “links in the description” or anywhere else. We are building a wall around our village. Nobody is permitted inside without authorization.

We will use the keyword system as a way to rebuild trusted connections with other web sites one by one. All other links to any of our properties will be considered security threats, because that’s exactly what they are. We have no control over what happens inside a “webview.” It creates a risk that our web sites, copyrighted works and trademarks are being either misappropriated or manipulated without our knowledge or consent, and we are not prepared to tolerate such activity. Not only is it unethical, it is illegal.

From now on, if you receive a newsletter in your email, it will contain simple instructions and your keyword. There will be no more links. You will only find authorized links to our properties inside our books or on our sites. If you find them anywhere else, if they are not paired with a keyword and if they don’t link to our search page they should be considered unsafe.

It Didn’t Have To Be This Way

Big Tech has turned the Internet into a dark place filled with suspicion and risk. Many of these companies have gone out of their way to vandalize my business and my career, and I’m fairly certain they have done the same to countless others. So determined are they to belligerently invite themselves into every conversation that they have created nothing more than a censorship regime that would be appalling to every tyrant who has ever lived. What we are doing is a matter of survival now. This far. No further.

We are raising a flag of rebellion. Join us.