Pet insurer Trupanion blocks The Canine Review, censoring hundreds of actively subscribed employees
America’s second largest provider of pet insurance, Seattle-based Trupanion, confirmed days ago that the company is now blocking The Canine Review’s domain name. Although we were told that the block had been lifted days later, by that point, we had already removed hundreds of active subscribers with Trupanion dot com email addresses from our distribution lists to avoid problems with third party email clients. Many academic and company servers filter pornographic content and, of course, there are other examples such as Instant Messenger, the once popular messaging application, and online games such as Snood. All were regularly blocked by company and academic servers. But no other American, U.S.-based company we’re aware of has ever blocked a news organization.
“We did not block because of what you wrote…”
Trupanion spokesman Michael Nank pushed back when asked if the block was the result of our reporting, including a story CEO Rawlings alleged was partially responsible for the company’s stock nosedive. “We did not block because of what you wrote,” Mr. Nank said in an email. The block was the result of unsolicited email: “TCR was sending blanket, unsolicited emails to Trupanion employees, so we blocked the domain,” he wrote in an email on Tuesday.
TCR content prohibited by Trupanion since when?
However, not only had TCR never been made aware by Trupanion officials that TCR content was now prohibited on its platform, but, of course, Trupanion, to the contrary, had expressed its support and fondness for TCR with a bulk subscription purchase.
Moreover, TCR’s distribution lists had not changed for at least six months when Trupanion suddenly blocked TCR’s server.
The only change or changes, of course, have occurred at Trupanion.
Trupanion then proposed to TCR that if we provided Trupanion with a master list of all Trupanion.com email addresses on our end, the company would prompt people internally to reach out to us to move their account settings to personal email addresses. However, Trupanion declined to implement any of our requested track changes to the message the company issued to employees, so we’re providing you with the facts:
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This week, Trupanion took a surprising and disappointing step farther away from its mission-based, vet-centric persona, once defined by soaring confidence, transparency, and accessibility under the leadership of maverick founder and CEO Darryl Rawlings.
Trupanion 2.0 informed TCR that it is now official company policy to prohibit consumption of content from The Canine Review’s domain server “thecaninereview.com” – including subscription account notifications such as password resets – via the Trupanion server, “Trupanion.com.”
Put simply, if you signed up for TCR using a Trupanion dot com email address, you are no longer able to receive content at that address.
To continue receiving TCR content, you must contact support@thecaninereview.com with a new, personal email address and TCR will move your account to the new email address.
UPDATE
Shortly following publication, company spokesman Michael Nank informed us that Trupanion’s server was no longer blocking TCR. However, because the block was already causing multiple technical problems on our end, we had already been forced to remove hundreds of active readers and paying subscribers with Trupanion dot com email addresses. As we’ve explained to Trupanion’s leaders, we’re obligated to ensure that our customers can retain access to their accounts, so we’re continuing to reach out to readers signed up for news alerts and/or created subscription accounts using Trupanion email addresses to get them moved to non-Trupanion email addresses.
Related:
Trupanion Ousts Top Execs, Stock Drops; CEO Continues to Evade Press
Can Vet-Centric Trupanion Continue to Deliver? High-Flying Insurance Maverick Hits Headwinds