Hi, it’s Kristi with the Indie Sellers Guild.  Thank you so much for signing our petition. I want to give you a final update - let you know what happened with our fight against being forced to share our private banking data with Plaid.

It wasn’t truly a victory - Etsy still states that they require Plaid for US sellers - but they seem to have extended the deadline to connect your bank account indefinitely for some sellers, and our sellers report that Etsy is no longer withholding funds for those who refuse to use this sketchy service. They never met our demands to extend non-Plaid bank account verification to sellers in the US (like they offer for all sellers outside the US), however.

We heard nothing back from the FTC when we reached out to report Etsy’s seeming violation of antitrust law. Etsy’s actions seemed a clear case of “tying the sale of two products” - forcing users to sign up for a service they do not want in order to keep selling on Etsy. But a couple of our members did hear back from the Attorney General in their US state.

They told us antitrust law protects consumers, not small business owners.

I felt deja-vu when I heard that, because you know what other laws don’t protect creative indie sellers? Labor law. All the laws that are designed to protect individuals against huge corporations don’t apply to us.

This is why we need an Indie Sellers Guild, an organization by indie sellers and for indie sellers, that will advocate for us when no one else will. We can work together to shed light on the injustices of Big Tech. Our guild is powered by volunteers and completely free to join, and you should join us if you haven’t yet!

It is also our goal to grow strong enough to fight for better laws to regulate Big Tech. We thought that this was a long term goal - a stretch-goal for years down the road - but due to an absolutely mindblowing development, we are well on our way towards that goal RIGHT NOW! We’ve got some incredible news to share with you.

Please stay tuned!