On January 6, people gathered for a demonstration in Washington and then advanced to the Capital Building and caused damage. There was fallout because of the building they went into – the building which houses the House of Representatives and Congress. Naturally there were consequences, and one of the many was Shopify terminated US President Donald Trump’s official web stores from using its platform.

In a column by Josh O’Kane, Shopify removed the Tump 2020 re-election campaign apparel and merchandise store and the one affiliated with his private business that sells everything from USB sticks to cocoa mix branded with his name.

Shopify, Twitter, Facebook and other companies stopped the message from President Trump because violence against the Capital Building has consequences. It also showed how quickly we have become dependent on such sites and how quickly they can come down.

Millions of retail companies have an on line presence and they use a third party because it is relatively easy to get started and do business. What most do not realize is when can the third party take down their business. What does the business do?

Linking to dividend paying stocks, all companies use other companies to help run their business. Most companies do not do everything in house, they pay others. Most of the time it works well, sometimes it does not. We saw a company called SolarWinds hacked through a company called JetBrains which helped run the software of SolarWinds. JetBrains has business with multiple companies. It is important to remember companies are only strong as their weakest link and all companies have a weak link somewhere.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.