
So you think you own your Twitter name? - collypops
http://ac31004.blogspot.com/2011/03/so-you-think-you-own-your-twitter-name.html
======
Udo
Disclaimer: I'm going to assume this really happened, even though it's coming
from a slightly suspicious looking Blogspot address, the description itself
looks believable.

The surprising thing here is not the obvious injustice or the callousness of
the Twitter team. Rather, it's that people think they somehow have a right to
use Twitter's services and accounts like they were their property. The same
goes for people who build businesses on Facebook and every other monolithic
site. I think users need to understand that they are on someone else's turf,
and they are subject to whatever the company decides to do. There is no
reasonable expectation of fairness, or of free speech for that matter.

That's why building a business on Twitter is foolish. I hear it's done
successfully all the time, yet people have to understand this is a very shaky
foundation. We're not even Twitter's customers. Advertisers are Twitter's
customers. Nobody should be surprised about this, in fact it's a miracle
"outrageous" stories don't happen more often.

~~~
greyman
Why there shouldn't be a reasonable expectation of fairness, i.e. that twitter
(or any free service for that matter) will not hand your nickname to another
entity? I believe there indeed is an unwritten rule on the Internet, that the
nickname should belong to the first person who registered it... I mean, if he
didn't violate the trademark at the time of registering the account. Of
course, twitter has the right to do it, but still I don't find it normal.

~~~
tptacek
There is absolutely no such rule.

~~~
Vivtek
And in fact Twitter is basically legally required to do just as they've done
in this case. Sucks, but reality often does.

Takeaway: Having a Twitter name is not a free substitute for having a presence
as a legal entity.

~~~
mckoss
I don't think so. You want to reference the statute? Domain name conflicts,
have to go through a more proper administrative and legal process, for
example. Twitter could chose to handle it like a domain name challenge, I
believe.

~~~
Vivtek
Do _you_ want to reference the statute? Domain name conflicts are not
addressed by any legal statute that I know of; it's simply been the policy of
the registrars from the start because everybody knew it was going to be a
problem. Twitter didn't have that foresight.

The key is this: if this new organization GIRLGEEKS has a trademark, they have
a trademark. What's Twitter's motivation to challenge that in court? None
whatsoever. If the original @girlgeeks wants to challenge it, she's welcome to
do so, but the point is that trademark law does exist, a trademark was granted
(even though I think it probably shouldn't have been) and somebody has to foot
the bill if it's going to be contested, and as much as I'd like to think it's
the person with the money, even I don't think that's Twitter's obligation.

Now, if it were me (and it was, for years, at Despammed.com), I'd say, sorry,
that name is taken unless you get a court order, leaving the ball in the court
where it should have been to start with. Twitter is obviously more craven than
I am, but then I was very small and not concerned with paying a staff.

The point is, if you want rights to a name, just using it on some free service
is sadly not enough to get them, and complaining that a large organization is
not being fair is no substitute, even if true.

~~~
tomkarlo
Trademark law does not create a blanket right to use a name in all instances,
or to the exclusive right to use a particular string of letters. It creates
the right to exclusive use of a mark in a particular "class" of trade so long
as you actually use that mark and also show that you have protected it against
infringement. (This is also why they're a better system than domain names:
it's much harder to "squat" on a trademark.) If the original user of the
account was not competing with the organization holding the trademark, not
pretending to be them, etc, then the fact they have a trademark is irrelevant.

If you have a consulting company named "thisisourname" and I have a muffin
bakery called "thisisourname", we can both have trademarks on that name
without any conflict.

------
philjackson
I'm @philjackson (my name being Phil Jackson, obviously) and there's a Phil
Jackson who's prominent in the world of basketball. I've often wondered, if
basketball Phil Jackson went to Twitter and said "I want @philjackson", would
they give it to him?

~~~
bmrr
It's very likely they would if he asked. Celebrities and business bring huge
traffic to Twitter and it's in Twitter's best interest to have more of them
sign up. Some might think it's also in their best interest not to screw their
users, but sadly it appears Twitter is moving towards Bieberfest as opposed to
meaningful conversation. How many Bieber fans care if your name is taken from
you?

~~~
jokermatt999
_it appears Twitter is moving towards Bieberfest as opposed to meaningful
conversation_

Honestly though, the medium suits Bieberfest a lot better than it suits
meaningful conversation. It's tough to have a good conversation in less than
140 characters. I'm not surprised they went with the angle that's better
marketing/money, either.

------
rtp
Just because it is within the rights of Twitter to be a dick doesn't mean that
it _should_ be a dick, and from where I am standing, Twitter is currently
acting like a dick.

~~~
janewilson90
Twitter and the person who stole the username. The original girlgeeks even
helped them set up and knows them.

~~~
Vivtek
Ouch, that's a lot worse than somebody independently registering a trademark
as an organization and then getting the name from Twitter.

------
pdx
We need a way to own our online persona's. We have one, it's called an email
address at a domain that you registered.

Unfortunately, we don't have an analogous mechanism for instant message
traffic. Actually we do, it's called a jabber server on a domain that you
registered.

But we don't have a way to publish our short, trivial thoughts to the world,
and still maintain ownership of our identity. But, really, we do. It's called
RSS.

People should publish their "tweets" via RSS feeds from their registered
domain name. You could "follow" people by subscribing to their RSS, and you
could "tweet" with a front end on your phone/computer that looks exactly like
your current twitter client, but is linked to your RSS feed.

An open source library that made all this easy could be written, for the
geeks, and for the non-geeks, there would be services that popped up that
would host for you, but since the domain name is still in your name, you can
move to another hosting provider at will.

Now, how to get everybody to switch?

~~~
franksalim
And x years down the line we'll see "so you think you own your domain name?"
Actually, we've already seen articles like that. It's just more difficult (but
not impossible) to lose your domain name for trademark reasons.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Or government intervention.

------
code_duck
It certainly appears that as far as these companies are concerned, users are
owed nothing and developers are owed nothing. We're just stepping stones on
the way to an IPO or exit.

Plenty of micro business owners have found this out the hard way on sites like
Etsy or eBay, for instance - they might think that the shop is theirs, and put
the URL on their business cards, promote it at craft shows, on their cars, in
expensive promotional graphics. All it takes is one idiot admin to close your
account, and it's gone (Etsy in particular has notoriously poor practices
regarding closing customers accounts, going back for years. There are plenty
of of customer service horror stories there. eBay has a long history of
NARUing sellers also). I've heard stories about flickr recently, too, deleting
accounts - people lose photos, messages, contacts going back years and the
company responsible simply doesn't care.

The only thing to do is to have your own domain, own website, use open source
software, and know what you're doing technically or be close to someone who
does. The only people who can take that away from you is courts or the
government. This is also why we need networks that work like Diaspora vs. ones
that work like Facebook.

------
xd
I found the statement made by the other side insightful: [http://www.girl-
geeks.co.uk/statement/Girl%20Geeks%20Stateme...](http://www.girl-
geeks.co.uk/statement/Girl%20Geeks%20Statement.pdf) [pdf]

" _Just for the record, I have personally sacrificed personal savings and a
full time salary for the last few years for this cause Girl Geeks. I certainly
did not do any of this for self-promotion or gain and believe in supporting
those who need it 100%._ "

She done a pretty good job of promoting herself in the response.

~~~
collypops
It is insightful, but still, she's only addressing a small part of the
problem. The larger issue here is that Twitter facilitate this kind of
activity. It should have been resolved between the two parties.

She should never have contacted Twitter to commandeer a @username. Saying you
did it on "[advice] by legal councel" is _not_ an excuse. She can't hide
behind that. Everybody makes sacrifices in life for their causes. That is not
an excuse. Lots of people are passionate and genuine. That is not an excuse.

I'm glad she apologised. If she genuinely wishes to resolve this, I've got a
suggestion. Return the username.

~~~
robryan
Yeah I don't get the letter at all, if she genuinely believes everything she
wrote then why approach Twitter to take the name in the first place.

------
metageek
Seems like this is a violation of Twitter's obligations under the ECPA to
ensure that someone's private communications are not delivered to a third
party.

~~~
collypops
Only the username was taken over. The account itself is still owned by the
original user (just with a new username). Nothing private would have been
transferred.

~~~
stuhacking
DMs and @mentions will now be redirected to the new account until the original
user is able to send the change of username notification. There's now a
chance, however slim, that a private message will arrive at the wrong person
as a result of Twitter's actions.

I'm ignoring the question of whether Twitter should be a medium for private
communications.

~~~
biot
You're looking at this from the wrong angle. A DM sent to girlgeeks will be
delivered to girlgeeks, exactly as the sender specified... much in the same
way that a postal carrier will deliver private snail mail to a street address
even if the intended recipient has already moved. Unlike snail mail where you
can address a specific individual by name (thus making it illegal for someone
else to open it) Twitter is the equivalent of "Dear Occupant" and whoever is
at that address can open it.

------
njharman
No, why on earth would you ever think that? I don't own my street address,
SSN, Prison ID, don't even _own_ my given name.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> I don't ... even own my given name.

Sure, but I bet you'd be pissed if N. J. Harman, LTD demanded that your change
_your_ name to avoid confusion, and could enforce their demands.

~~~
catshirt
are there no legal restrictions or implications surrounding naming your child
after a registered trademark?

~~~
rm445
Not as far as I'm aware of, though in some countries the authorities have some
oversight of names, so you might be stopped from naming your child Pepsi
Microsoft or other silly things.

More to the point, there are laws governing what names you can trade under.
For example in the UK I think (this isn't my field, info could be wrong/out of
date) sole traders and partnerships can legally trade under a personal name -
so if your name was McDonald you could run a restaurant under your real name,
but you'd probably have to be careful to always carefully list it as J.
McDonald (London) or similar to avoid infringing McDonald's trademarks.

------
rm445
One thing the comments here haven't addressed is how Twitter's behaviour in
this case compares with how such things have traditionally been dealt with on
the Internet. I think there's a reasonable expectation that big Web companies
act in a way compatible with the rest of the Net even if they are for-profit.

Consider the Nissan Computer Corporation website: <http://www.nissan.com/>

Or read about when a company called GAIL tried to take gail.com off a woman
named Gail:
[http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2006/d2006...](http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2006/d2006-0655.html)

Now obviously girl-geeks is not a personal nickname, nor apparently was it
previously the name of any sort of registered company or other entity, more of
an ad-hoc sort of thing. Given that someone later formed a company with this
name and trademarked it, should they get the rights to that Twitter name?
Would they be able to take girl-geeks.com off a previous owner who was using
it in good faith?

My suspicion is that they wouldn't, and Twitter's behaviour is bad netiquette.

~~~
VladRussian
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_vs._MikeRoweSoft>

------
svag
So, the same applies to the "free" web services like gmail and MSN/hotmail?
They just can take your username and give it to someone else?

~~~
brazzy
OF COURSE THEY CAN!

It boggles my mind that anyone would seriously need to ask that question.

Entitlement much?

Yes, it would not be nice of them to do it. Yes, it could be bad for their
image and ultimately even their business to do it. No, they shouldn't do it.

But they can, and it's not illegal.

~~~
daleharvey
It has nothing to do with entitlement, I am pretty sure a lot of people would
be surprised to know that their gmail account could be given to someone else
at random.

~~~
Vivtek
A lot of people are surprised about a lot of things - most people don't know
what's in their food, just off the top of my head - but that doesn't mean they
have some right to have things they way they thought they were. There's just
so far a sense of outrage will take you.

------
tnorthcutt
This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

~~~
devinj
Of course it shouldn't. No facts should be surprising, but they are. So what
do you do about it? You either fix peoples' expectations to match reality, or
you fix reality to match peoples' expectations.

Considering that the expectations here seem pretty reasonable, I'd personally
rather the latter.

~~~
jerf
"Fixing reality" is mathematically impossible. Not all people and groups of
people can be given their choice of a unique name in a single global
namespace. You can define different conflict resolution schemes, but there
will be conflicts and there will be losers and there will be people who think
the losers should have won (not least of which, the losers themselves)
regardless of what you do.

------
br1
If I had the money I would trademark unprotected twitter accounts just to have
them (temporarily) assigned to me and make more noise about this outrage.

------
betolive
An interesting example related to the ongoing online identity wars. Facebook,
Google & Twitter are fighting to get our time investment in their free
platforms without giving us the assurance that our investment will be
rewarded.

If only the decentralized Twitter proposed a few years ago would have been
built, we (users) would have more control about our identity, probably it is a
little bit late now.

------
e03179
Anyone notice that Druge Report got on Twitter, announced the link and their
account was @DRUDGE_? Then a day or two later, it was @DRUDGE.

------
drdaeman
So, this way or another, path leads to decentralized social networks, where
your identity is protected with your knowledge of private key.

------
kovar
From the posting: "Last night an organsation called @GIRLGEEKS contacted
Twitter to say they had registered trademark for Girl Geeks and wanted the
@girlgeeks account for themselves."

The original owner could have pursued similar protection and avoided the
problem.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>The original owner could have pursued similar protection and avoided the
problem.

Trademarks cost money - international protection costs quite a lot of money.

Do Twitter accept any registered trademark, like if I've a registered
trademark in Afghanistan (say) will they protect me against someone with the
same mark registered in the US or in Europe?

It seems that Twitter aren't bound to give a RTM holder the name but the
person using it could be sued if they're using it to trade and not making it
clear that their goods&services do not originate with the RTM holder.

~~~
collypops
The dispute should have been settled between the two users. Twitter had no
place in this, unless they were forced to do something as a result of court
action resulting from a private dispute, which they weren't.

~~~
nollidge
Based on what the new @girlgeeks holder (Mia Chapman) has said [1], it looks
like she talked to Twitter only as a first step, and never expected them to
just hand it over with no notice to the previous name holder (Morna Simpson).
Also sounds as if Mia's trying to resolve things with Morna mano-a-mano (so to
speak) now.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2313593>

------
bo_Olean
sometimes it feels like we are in illusion about "free" stuffs in internet.
Google, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook or whatever.. everything they claim to be
free.. they cost your time, they change your mindset, they change the overall
you. Nothing is free here, its hardly convincing - yet we just embrace so
called free stuffs even without a single thought. More pathetic thing is -
these free services don't care who you are - they are just doing their
business.

what would have been your decision in such situation if you were Twitter Inc,
i am just curious ?

------
riffic
I've identified the namespace "problem" on twitter for a few years now. This
is exactly what you get when you put all your eggs into a single service
provider's basket.

------
knowzie
I think owning the .com should be the new criteria for owning a trademark.

~~~
davidu
That's a terrible idea. Just think about it for more than one second.

~~~
mckoss
One second is up. I stil don't understand your reasoning. Care to explain?

~~~
techsupporter
Who owns whitehouse.com? Should that entity now have a right to "White House"
as a trademark and, in the case of this discussion, @whitehouse on Twitter, on
the basis of owning that domain?

~~~
mckoss
Yes, but the domain registration process is just another "registration
process". The domain one is "modern" (inexpensive, online, self-service), the
trademark one (USPTO) is "old" ("manual", "offline", "cumbersome",
"expensive").

Why should the government get whitehouse.com - they are entitled to
whitehouse.gov. Are you saying governments should have precedence over the
priority of other entities?

Since we are discussing here, an international trademark system, I think the
properties of the domain registration system are much preferred to the
properties of the fragmented and ill-defined international trademark process.

~~~
adestefan
I believe what they're trying to say is that .com is a completely arbitrary
demarcation.

Are you saying that a .com should have precedence over the priority of a .org,
.edu, or .co.uk? Should Harvard Book Store (harvard.com) be somehow entitled
to @harvard over Harvard University (harvard.edu)?

