• by Ray Schultz , December 5, 2019

A Houston personal injury lawyer who has sued Facebook and other firms for allegedly facilitating sex trafficking now has marketing service firm Mailchimp within her sights.

Attorney Annie McAdams filed suit against Mailchimp last week in a Georgia court, alleging that the firm served YesBackpage.com, a purported copycat site that has replaced Backpage.com, an alleged sex marketplace closed by U.S. authorities in 2018, according to a report by Buzzfeed. 

Asked for comment. a Mailchimp spokesperson forwarded this comment to MediaPost: “While we can’t say much about the allegations in the complaint because this is a sensitive legal matter, we can tell you we absolutely don’t allow content related to illegal activity on our platform, as stated in our Standard Terms of Use and Acceptable Use Policy. We take action immediately when we become aware of potential abuse of our platform.”

The firm told Buzzfeed that YesBackpage was no longer a client. 

Buzzfeed states that YesBackpage had not responded to its request for comment.

Tech giants can expect more such suits, judging by this action. 

The lawsuit charges that an email promoting YesBackpage was sent via Mailchimp.

This email hit the inbox of a sex trafficker who listed a Wisconsin woman on YesBackpage and forced her to provide sexual services, the suit says, according to Buzzfeed.

MediaPost was not able to independently verify these allegations at deadline.