

Twitter Stole My [username] At The Behest of a Corp (why this is a non-story) - kn0thing
http://breadpig.posterous.com/twitter-stole-my-username-at-the-behest-of-a 

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gyardley
Heh, I remember when I believed that users should be responsible for the terms
of service they agree to when signing up for a service, and if the company was
entitled to do something in the terms of service the user had no cause to
complain, because - after all - they agreed to the terms. Naturally, this
ended up biting me in the ass more than somewhat.

After a lot of ranting to my girlfriend ('a contract's a contract', etc.) I
reluctantly added this to the pile of stupid things I once believed in. Yes,
you have to have terms of service to cover your butt in case someone actually
bothers to sue you, but as far as your users are concerned, they didn't read
them and they don't exist. Your webservice is subject to a set of
unarticulated, unwritten expectations of what a users' rights _should_ be, and
if you violate any of these, the resulting PR backlash can make you wish they
just up and quietly sued you instead.

Might not be fair, but that's how it is.

~~~
fnid2
I expect $10 a month for my sharecropping, but none of these dern websites
have paid me yet. I am going to take them to small claims court for they money
they owe me!

That's kind of what you are saying right? Seriously, companies are supposed to
behave the way you expect them to? The way the users want them to? No way.

These websites are creating "FREE" services for "users" who pay nothing and
receive benefit. Many users go in, create an account just to squat and then do
nothing but take up resources and potential for other users who actually
_want_ to use the service.

There never has been and never will be a free lunch folks. Get over it. Build
your own website if you don't want some jerks at these "free" websites doing
things with data that essentially -- they own -- because you gave it to them.

~~~
gyardley
Not exactly, both because your expectation of $10 per month for your web 2.0
serfdom isn't the community norm (thank god) and because these community norms
are enforced through the court of public opinion, not small claims court. And
you do seem like you're confusing my 'this is how it is' statement with a
'this is how it should be' statement, and getting quite angry about the
latter. I actually agree with you completely - users of a free service
shouldn't have any cause to complain about what's in the TOS.

But that isn't the way things actually work. Instead, if your company does
something that users don't like - whether they've consented to it in your
terms of service or not - the users will react by creating a big public
relations nightmare for you, which will ultimately damage the value of your
company. There's not much benefit in being on solid legal ground if the public
destroys your reputation.

------
ohashi
I do think there is some issue here, whether it's legal or not is irrelevant
in my mind. Users' expectations have become that creating a
<channel,twitter,tumbler,subdomain,account> is THEIRS, they put the work in,
built it up, only to have it taken away. It's the little guy getting screwed
and it's an emotional issue. The closer you get to brand squatting the less
sympathy of course, but the issues like pitchfork or the last one I remember
(can't remember exactly what it was - but it was his name that was taken by a
big corp) are legitimate gripes. The internet is supposed to be a level
playing field for individuals and fortune companies alike in many ways, and if
users keep having their trust broken the whole notion of community and UGC
could be threatened in the long run. Why work hard if companies are just going
to steal it?

~~~
kn0thing
You've got a good point here: tumblr violated that trust it had with its
users. I think we'll become a bit more careful as a result (tho, maybe
fortunately, not everyone reads HackerNews) but more powerful than that, I
think we ought to champion the companies that _aren't_ doing this so users can
make informed decisions about which service they'll use.

But surely the majority of people uploading to YouTube, tagging their facebook
photos, or tweeting about their breakfast aren't thinking about who owns that
content or what rights they have to it. Should they? Absolutely. But how to
raise that level of awareness?

This is the real story here (not about any individual - myself included - who
is making a fuss over losing a username/subdomain from a free service they're
using).

~~~
ohashi
I think there is a growing concern among people using these social sites,
about the type of information and the access to it. Every story that runs
about 'employer sees employee's drunken pics instead of going to work' or 'she
didn't get the job because she believes in <something>', etc raises awareness
at least a little bit for some people about the issues surrounding these types
of services. I also think the _real_ content generators (I am using this in
opposition to the ones that create it unknowingly - facebook albums, status
updates, etc that are not meant for public consumption) are becoming more
aware of the risks as each story goes on. There is the HN/tech savvy crowd
that gets outraged each time this happen, there is a larger, but quieter group
of people actually working in a relevant area and then the masses... the
masses certainly don't care, but that middle group who participate, might or
will soon as more of these incidents occur.

Also, agree 100% on championing companies that treat people right, people love
to be treated like human beings and it's sad it such a rare phenomena that we
get giddy with excitement when a company does it.

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lsc
Yeah, allmost all AUPs say "we can fuck you and there is nothing you can do
about it" - but most of the time, you expect the company to behave reasonably.

Speaking as someone who has to write AUPs, this is something I spend some time
thinking about.

Sometimes it's pretty obvious, like the guy is selling fake rolexes, etc...
but sometimes it's more subtle. I mean, I don't want to be a haven for people
breaking the laws, but I also don't want to be a pushover that kicks off
legitimate users who have just pissed off people who like to file abuse
reports.

This is, I think, why a reasonable AUP and set of policies is important. It
should be simple for me, or for someone who works for me who reads the policy
do decide how they should react to a particular abuse report.

~~~
kn0thing
It would please me to no end if we had a crowdsourced database grading the
terms of service and practices of sites. Or some version of AUP that was
created with CreativeCommons-like elegance and simplicity...

~~~
lsc
I'm looking into implementing that (I mean, I need to get my own policies in
place; that just seems like the way to do it.) If others are interested, email
me.

~~~
kn0thing
Great! Sign me up - I'd love to see codified and prominently on reddit. And
while I'm at it, I'm going to register a few Hacker News usernames... let's
see... Microsoft, Apple, Pitchfork...

update: Breadpig has just registered UniversalAUP.com, .net, and .org that
I'll donate to wherever we can get this online.

------
rotatingplanets
this whole thing is leaving a bad taste in my mouth. heres why:

you have a kid that knowingly registered another's _trademarked_ name, and
when pitchfork __asks __(not tells, not purchases like so many re-blogs imply)
tumblr for control of what appears to be a dead blog (IMO it wasn't producing
anything worth-while anyways), tumblr hands over control. shame on tumblr for
not making more of an attempt, and double shame on this kid for running to his
_real_ blog to cry that his _fake_ blog was __stolen __by an __evil
__corporation. then, half of the tumblosphere blindly and automaticaly
reblogged his post.

pitchfork responded and the community mostly accepted it - no ill will on
their part. tumblr has yet to officially respond past an immature blog post
from a 25 year old 'director of outreach', but i bet they will and i bet they
will provide evidence to their claims. they have millions of __real __dollars
behind them, and no reason to jeopardize that. i also wager that this kid is
trying harder to make a scene than he is to actually reclaim his name. his
email to tumblr was very polite while his blog posts have not been. why? has
he emailed pitchfork? they are not some nameless faceless corporation like
exxon.

here is another point i would like to make: you don't own your username.
__read __the terms of service. use your __brain __. just because you signed up
does not mean you are actually entitled.

and another thing while i am shaking my cane: to all of you that reblogged it
on tumblr without following up on the story or adding insight of your own:
why?

------
bensummers
If you sign up for an address on a platform you don't control, whether a
service subdomain or a username, there's always a possibility that the
platform owner will give it to someone else. Especially as their terms and
conditions will always say they can, just to protect themselves in these
situations.

Fortunately, there are these newfangled things called domain names, which have
an actual concept of ownership with real contracts and everything. These can
go a long way to solving the sudden revocation of 'ownership' problem. I
wonder why they haven't taken off?

~~~
mseebach
It's not so simple, although I agree it's simpler.

There was a case in Denmark, where a private person had registered orango.dk
in 1999 (IIRC) because that was his IRC-handle. He didn't have an active
website on it, but used it for mail. In 2009-ish, a design-agency was
established as orango.nu and claimed the .dk domain from the registrar, and
was awarded it because it "would be put to better use".

Only after a veritable storm of unpleasantness from the community and threat
of a lawsuit (the outcome of which wasn't clear, since private property isn't
well established in the domain name space - it's all private contract law, and
the contract basically allowed them to do what they did), orango.nu gave up
the domain and passed it back. No procedures, rulesets or legislation is going
to be revised over this incident.

Obviously the system needs to be able to deal with (actual!) trademark
infringing squatting, phishing etc. effectively, so making everything a case
of private property isn't viable, but admitting error would definitely make me
trust the .dk registrar a lot more.

Finally, even if you use your own domain for e.g. tumblr, their TOS still
allows them to kick you out for no reason. A domain allows you to take your
content elsewhere, but follows/followers etc. are lost.

~~~
bensummers
At least you can resort to the court for domains, and that threat goes a
little way towards preserving the stability of the system. You sign away thise
rights if you're using an internet namespace controlled by anyone else.

~~~
mseebach
My point is that domains _are_ an internet namespace controlled by someone
else. When buying a .dk domain, you apparently enter into a contract agreeing
that they can do this to you (not that I've read the contract any of the 60-70
times I've purchased a .dk domain)...

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terrellm
There's a BIG difference in Pitchfork/tumblr and this article where the author
had @digg on Twitter where he/she displayed data from Digg's RSS feed. This
big difference is the tumblr guy was not infringing on Pitchfork's trademark
while this guy was.

If Joe's Apple Farm has @apple or apple.tumblr.com, he should be able to keep
it if he has non-infringing content where he talks about the apples he grows.
If Joe starts displaying iPod affiliate links and blogging about iPads, he has
crossed the line into a situation where he may be infringing on trademarks.

------
thehodge
I had my own run in with Twitter usernames and the publisher Apress, I ran
@apress and hooked it up to the book release feed, I never got an email from
Twitter, they just handed it over, I tweeted and got a very apologetic email
from apress (and some free books!)

I'm not upset about them taking the subdomain, more the response from the
employee who states things as facts that just aren't true (and comes off as
very aggressive).

~~~
kn0thing
Bravo, Apress. I love reading great examples of companies doing the right
thing (alas, they're not good linkbait). While no one can call me a fan of
digg, they rightly recognized you as someone who genuinely liked their company
and were only _doing them a favor._ Thanks for sharing this.

------
kaddar
Someone should make a startup and name it John Smith

