So someone is complaining that they registered a bunch of names they thought would be monetarily valuable at a later date, and is complaining when the company that provides the service is disallowing him from doing it? Sorry, but that just earns a big f*ck you from me. I have no sorrow for domain squatters, and that extends to people who grabbed Facebook app names, Twitter names, whatever. Twitter isn't like the DNS system. You are using a service being provided at no charge.
I'll grant that there are likely to be situations where your personal Twitter account name conflicts with some big company. However, on that level if you have a long history of actively using your Twitter account as your own identity then the weight of evidence is on your side. Twitter can tell the Big Bad Company "No, pick another name". But if you've gone out and just registered 50 names, with no activity on them, only in the hopes that you'll get companies to buy them from you later, go screw yourself.
I'm siding with geius on this one. To the extent that no money changed hands and Steve wasn't paying them to use the celtics usename, then I think Twitter can do whatever they want whenever they want.
It may not be good karma for them to take the names without warning, but Twitter's job is to pay the bills and keep the lights on, not turn down good exposure (and perhaps some coin) to keep one guy happy who didn't have a true right to the name in the first place.
Perhaps they are getting some cash from the Celtics to use the name. So what? If you're one of the tens of thousands of people like Steve that are using Twitter for free to promote a business, then Twitter getting some cash to pay the bills another month is only a good thing.
By "right to a name" I'm speaking specifically about Steve's right to own the Twitter username celtics. From a "first come, first serve" perspective, I suppose he has a right to use the username... until Twitter deems otherwise.
The terms of service said they could come and take it, and Steve's not paying them any money for exclusive use of the name, so from that standpoint I don't feel he has a right to use the username any more than the Boston Celtics do. It's Twitter - who owns the service - that I think has the right to do what they please.
I'm not saying that I agree with how they handled it and I can see why Steve is pissed off, but I don't think they have any obligation to let Steve keep the username.
I was kicking around a definition involving trademarks. In general, owning a name that can be seen to infringe a trademark is a problem, no matter how you slice it. The Celtics baseball team have an actual, legal claim to the word "Celtics", which is not unlimited by any means, but is certainly stronger than "some guy registered this name on this site".
Now, had he been some sort of Celtic organization (and I mean the ethnic group, not the team) it might be a more interesting discussion, legally.
(And I'm just skipping out on the ethical issues.)
Twitter don't mandate that you have to use your account for personal reasons only, as far as I know. How you use your account is up to you - that's one of Twitter's strengths... every person uses it in their own way.
I have no sympathy for domain squatters, but I have no sympathy for domain bullies either. the "Boston Celtics", whoever they are, have as little right to the username "celtics" as this guy. As such, he should probably keep it.
If you'd grabbed "celtics.com" do you think you would have a legal right to it? What about McDonalds.com? Why is this different than general brand trademarks as they relate to domain names?
It seems to be a conflict if you're in the same "domain". i.e. If I grab @celtics and talk about Celtic language and culture, it shouldn't be a conflict. If I grab it to build a following about the team, I'm piggybacking on the effort/expense of them building that brand and deserve to have it yanked.
IMO, it's very similar to the Nissan.com case - the owner of that domain is named Nissan and has a business with that name. He got there first, and he's got rights. However, if it was some random guy who put up a splash page or a nissan car site, it's trademark infringement, no?
Because that's the first thing that came to mind reading this complaint. That was back in the wild days of the Internet, when official company spokespeople could say:
"Are you finding that the Internet is a
big thing?" asked Jane Hulbert, a helpful
McDonald's media-relations person, with
whom I spoke a short while ago.
Same thing here. 18 months ago, Twitter's namespace was considered worthless. Now Twitter leads to live commentary on cable television, celebrities use it, and companies need a Twitter Strategy.
I guess I did mention the law, but that's not where I was going... But, yes, I know that Twitter has no legal obligation to any party. But if you agree that domain squatters should have to give up domain names to trademark holders, then the parallel holds.
I have no sorrow for land squatters. You have land being created by the universe at no charge. Just because you got to the country a hundred years before anyone else, now you think you can claim all the land you roped off and all the useful mineral content of that land? Sorry, but that just earns a big f*ck you from me.
Domains and account names all have a market value, to suppose that the value should remain at $0 is to ignore the fact that certain names hold value. I'm not sure how anyone expected that these names would not get taken by people who saw the (pretty obvious) fact that these would become "monetarily valuable at a later date"
Hating domain squatters is the equivalent of disagreeing with free market principles in the domain economy. When things have uneven value and are sold for an even amount (free in the case of Twitter) its not surprising that a market develops to regulate this exchange.
In this example Twitter is the central regulator and can control things in a way that benefits them the most. However, if you think they are any more worthy or have less of a profit motive than this other guy you are simply fooling yourself.
I think the point here is that if someone is using a twitter ID for a reasonable use then it's unreasonable for Twitter to turf them off. The use of 'celtics' as an unofficial fan site seems pretty legitimate. Why does a sports team have dibs? If I'm from Ireland can I kick them off? My claim would have more historic president.
Twitter should have a resolution process similar to ICANN.
While I share your frustration with domain squatters, and the such, it's worth noting that you ought to read between the lines with your vociferation.
His account "celtics" was being used for fans to check stats and news on the basketball team. I wouldn't call that no activity. I have the same kind of account on Tumblr for the Indianapolis Colts; pictures I take when I'm at football games or interesting news clips. It's not a dormant account. So on that note, saying "no activity" isn't correct, he was apparently doing something with the accounts.
In defense of name squatters I have to say it is easy to become a squatter without any evil intentions. if you have any idea for a service, you are practically forced to reserve a name first (or risk investing the effort to implementing it in vain). If then for some reason the implementation is delayed, bingo, you have become a name squatter.
At least the writer of that article sounded as if he was planning genuine services for those names, rather than just hoping to sell the names for profit eventually.
First of, you could have skipped the insults. Apparently you do not know much about Steve. I recommend you go read some of his 70+ ideas he posted almost 2 years back.
Secondly, he saw an opportunity when most people did not, so he should totally benefit from it.
18 months ago, most people did not know about Twitter and they could not see it being useful to anyone. Steve did. You should go back to his blog entries at TechQuilaShots. He was sharing ideas on how businesses could take advantage of Twitter. Only a few read his blog and a fewer followed his advices. So he did it. Now they want to take that away from him. Not cool.
“Secondly, he saw an opportunity when most people did not, so he should totally benefit from it.”
That happened to my wife a couple of months ago; she was trying to use her laptop on the street to record a protest, and someone saw an opportunity where most people did not, and ran off carrying her laptop. I bet he benefited from that.
That someone “saw an opportunity when most people did not” doesn't really tell you anything about whether exploiting that opportunity is moral or immoral.
So Twitter making money by getting the Celtics their @ name is more worthy than letting a guy run fan information using that name? Sorry, but that doesn't make any sense.
Feel free to actually say something constructive without being an asshole next time.
Did the guy violate any rules? Not unless you go by a strict definition of Twitter's TOS. Your original analogy makes no sense. The Celtics didn't have the name stolen from them (they never owned it in the first place) and the guy wasn't using it for a non-legitimate reason, so why should he not benefit from the common knowledge of the association of "Celtics" with the Boston Celtics basketball team?
I said, “That someone “saw an opportunity when most people did not” doesn't really tell you anything about whether exploiting that opportunity is moral or immoral.”. Your response was a complete non-sequitur, and furthermore it appeared to attribute to me a position including material facts that are probably false. In the comment to which I am replying, you have called me an “asshole.”
I appreciate your expressed concern for the constructiveness of the conversation. May I suggest that you try a different strategy if a constructive conversation is what you seek? Putting words in the mouths of other participants and name-calling may not be the most effective way to engage in a constructive conversation.
I was just pointing out that rokhayakebe's syllogism, “Secondly, he saw an opportunity when most people did not, so he should totally benefit from it,” depends on an absurd unstated premise. Whether this blogger who we’re talking about happens to be a robo-spamming scumbag or not isn’t really relevant to that.
And that is why you fail at reading comprehension.
First, you asserted that it was wrong for Party B (your wife) to suffer because Party A (a thief) took her laptop. It was unclear whether you were only trying to point out that opportunism isn't always moral, or if you were also making the allegation that what the OP had initially done in this case was immoral. (which it is now clear you were not) I was simply comparing the morality of Twitter in this case to the morality of the OP.
Second, the position I attributed to you was a natural extension of your argument, if you don't qualify such a statement as part of a discussion I'm going to assume you are applying your suggestion to the discussion as a whole. In this case you brought up that opportunism is not always moral, which is true, but you did not exclude the discussion at hand so I made the assumption that you were implying that the OPs stance was immoral as well.
Third, please tell me how you expected "you fail at reading comprehension" to lead to any sort of rational debate before you accuse me of the same. When you say such things without qualification don't be surprised if you get called an asshole, because under the circumstances its likely true.
You were the one who complained about the discussion not being "constructive," not me. (In the same sentence where you called me an "asshole".) I was just pointing out that you weren't really behaving in a way that often leads to constructive discussion. Consider it a tip. No charge! Feel free to call me an "asshole" as often as you please, if that's what melts your butter. Or a "motherfucker" or "dickhead" if you like. It really doesn't matter to me. But it probably won't lead to constructive conversation!
I pretty much gave up hope of constructive discussion when you put words in my mouth, totally failed to understand what I wrote, and accused Twitter of taking a bribe. So I decided to make fun of you instead.
Totally disagree... And I believe the law does as well, when it comes to domain names (the best precedent I can think of).
If I bought toyota.com, nissan.com, honda.com, etc when domain names first came available, that doesn't mean I have the rights to keep them unless I had legitimate interests in those domain names that didn't compete with the trademark holder (as was the case in the Nissan.com situation).
Certainly, a lot of people benefited from those early buys, but if they got greedy, they generally got sued (and lost). Even typosquatters have successfully been sued.
I don't understand the association of capitalism with greed, certainly people who had the foresight to understand that domains would be valuable at some point in the future (and put their money where their mouths were) should be compensated (at a reasonable price) for taking that risk no?
Taking the risk and grabbing something generic-but-powerful, like "business.com" or "porn.com" seems fine. Grabbing someone elses brand name for the purpose of squatting on it and then extorting the trademark owner just seems wrong.
The point is that the domains would have almost ZERO value if the business who has the trademark hadn't spent huge piles of money building the brand and the goodwill around it. In this guys case, he grabs @celtics and tosses up some basketball stats, and he's basically leeching off the brand. It's not dissimilar to setting up a Hamburger stand and calling it "McDonalds" with a stylized "M" logo.
In domain/twitter name case, there's no actual risk being taken. Twitter names are free. Domain names are cheap ($30/year at first). So in my mind, they should be compensated at a reasonable price for the risk they took... Let's say 30x return on whatever they put into it. :-)
Twitter-squatting is not the same as domain-squatting. It's more in line with MySpace which has also reserved the right to manage names as they see fit.
Steve's doing nothing more than assuming an opportunity and making an * of himself by complaining about it.
That's just it there was no opportunity and Twitter is better off preventing people from trying exploit others by being the first to grab interesting names.
In this case, it's quite clear that Steve saw an opportunity to make money where there wasn't one. His attempt to squat on these "quality" names that were "front row seats" was based on the ridiculous idea that a Twitter name is worth money. He was wrong.
I do find the examples he uses somewhat laughable. He lost the name "celtics" for obvious reasons; it's tie to the Boston Celtics basketball team. But then he starts fear mongering with stuff like...
StockTwits just raised nearly $1 million — their business is based off Twitter. Definitely one of their assumptions is that they’ll be keeping their username ‘StockTwits’.
Yes because squatting on a name like 'celtics' is somehow similar to using a unique username that ties to the user/company who also owns the domain name that is the title of a service that they are providing?
Sorry, I just don't see the connection there. Just because the people at Twitter decided your username had better uses doesn't mean that they are going to arbitrarily start cutting off other usernames.
Of course, then he brings up the "...but others are doing it too!" argument as if that tactic has ever worked in defending someone's viewpoint...well...ever.
I apologize if I'm coming off harsh, I just really don't see why this situation is surprising or somehow wrong.
I don't understand why most people here are siding with Twitter. Their TOS clearly say that they don't tolerate impersonation, but running a fan account (or even simply holding a Twitter name and not using it) doesn't amount to impersonation. Why should any company automatically be granted the right to their username on any service? Of course Twitter reserves the right to do whatever is best for their business, but stop glorifying Twitter for doing the right thing, they have just as much of an interest in profit as this guy does.
Also, I find it very odd that a community of people who seem to mostly fall on the libertarian/free market side economically have a big problem with domain squatters, or people on Twitter attempting to take advantage of an imperfect market. While I certainly did not like domain squatters when we were searching for company names, I understand why they exist. The market for domain names is not efficient because it values all names at the same price (lsdjhaofiwjleijwa.com costs the same per year to register as google.com) of course this is wrong. Where there is an imperfect market there is usually money to be made, with domains you have domain squatters. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that domains don't tend to lose value so the cost of holding them is very minimal. Its a market, someone is going to make money off of demand. To suppose that domains didn't have monetary value and then they suddenly did when a squatter bought the domain is absurd. They always had value, everyone was just paying below market rate before.
Don't like market pricing? Go back in time to Communist Russia.
I don't believe that you can honestly say that the author's valuation of "celtics" over "bc_fan_news" or any other name does not come from the potential for misidentification and association with the Boston Celtics brand. It may not be the most thorough attempt at deception, but it is reasonable to call that a form of impersonation.
From a "libertarian/free market" perspective, why the hell should I favor the guy who made a stupid mistake in thinking that he owned something that he didn't? Your tangent on domain squatters is irrelevant, given that the rules of each system are completely different. Twitter usernames are not a free market, and it is utterly stupid to have thought that they were.
"guy who made a stupid mistake in thinking that he owned something that he didn't"
The point is that the Celtics organization doesn't deserve special treatment. Why is it "utterly stupid" to think that you could get some names (whether related to an organization or not) that you could later sell? As long as you don't think you are in violation of the TOS it seems pretty logical to me.
You don't get it. The Celtics don't own it either, and they'd be stupid to think they did. Twitter does. However:
"We reserve the right to reclaim usernames on behalf of businesses or individuals that hold legal claim or trademark on those usernames." -- http://twitter.com/terms
That gives them a pretty good reason to think it's OK to ask Twitter for the name. Bear in mind that Twitter has this right whether it is in the TOS or not, and that they likewise have the right to not reclaim usernames on behalf of trademark holders. If the situation had not been one where the user was obviously using the name to reference the trademark, maybe they wouldn't have.
And yes, he was making the assumption that he owned the names. How else can you complain that you've been deprived of something valuable that it was your right to have if you don't believe you own it?
In summary, he's saying they need a better policy (i.e. more clearly defined rules), so that he can game the system better. Classic webcockery.
Sorry, chap, but the Terms of Service do not state that Twitter will guarantee your business model, and you're an idiot for thinking that you "owned" the name in the first place.
What if they allowed duplicate names? Navigating to twitter.com/username would then display everyone with that name (like how Wikipedia handles it). The chances that you are following more than one person with the same name is pretty slim. If that does happen, then you pick which one gets your @ replies.
Because you worry there wouldn't be a unique way to link to you, or because you don't want your potential customers to know who thinks they're your competitor, or because you're worried people would get confused?
that's a good point, but i bet that could be resolved, too. i like the show_all option. the more transparency the better. we still want to be careful not to squander the resources of clarity and lack of information.
One solution is to expose unique IDs and allow people to hang nicks on those. Using email addresses or phone numbers goes most of the way toward this (it's not all the way, since people could get an email address or phone number that someone else used to have, at some ISPs or phone companies). However, there's a larger, related problem, which is the problem of identity: there is no foolproof way of identifying individuals, and the more you investigate, the more clear it becomes that existing attempts fail miserably for edge cases, and criminal / fraudulent activity is probably the longest edge.
My point is that it's an old problem in desperate search of a solution. We need a single name that works across all sites. Why should I have to tell people that I'm AndrewWarner on Hacker news and Twitter, but if they want to find me on digg on AndrewDiggs because AndrewWarner was already taken. And if the want to find me...
We need one public identifier that works across all networks.
Solve it the same way that they solve naming conflicts in programming languages: namespaces (Edit: as others have suggested).
There is both a "whitehouse.com" (it has a landing page at the moment, SFW) and a "whitehouse.gov"
I tend to side with Twitter here. Don't like it? Go create your own website (set up a laconi.ca node). I don't think that there is any inherent justification in the first-come-first-serve method of provisioning, maybe it is just an artifact of our culture?
The user name bostonceltics is taken by someone that is doing the same thing and using the Boston Celtics' logo for their icon. Seems like they would have been a better candidate to bully into moving their user name.
Why is that better? The author was using the logo for both the icon and the background, and under the name "Boston Celtics News", and perhaps most damningly, it wasn't a fan account by an actual human being, it was a fully automated bot account. One one dozens he runs. Or did run, before most of them were suspended.
True. I guess I meant from just the Celtic's standpoint. They would have more of a right to get bostonceltics since that's probably their actual brand name. As someone else pointed out, the term celtics refers to more than just a basketball team.
I disagree - I don’t think Twitter is going down a slippery slope. I think they’re making a sincere attempt to make their service as authentic and as useful as possible.
The subtext is that a Twitter username suggests identity (in fact that’s the underlying magic of Twitter) and that the service on the whole becomes less useful as identity becomes fractured.
It may well come to pass that they need to set up a more stringent system to analyze conflicts (e.g. what if your last name and user name were knicks and your twitter feed was not about basketball?).
Creating a new namespace is bad, because you renew the same old disputes that people have fought over in the old namespaces. Creating a new flat namespace is worse, because it intensifies the disputes.
DNS exists and at least it has a dispute resolution process; let's use it. (see Laconica)
I think there is some hope for the UDRP. OTOH Twitter is completely unregulated. Between corporatism and benevolent dictatorship, it's a tough decision.
Twitter is a business, just like any other, ultimately, they own all the usernames, you're just using them, if they see a better way to assign a username, why would they not chose it? You're getting value out of the twitter network, and twitter has every right to do what makes more sense to them. If users don't like the decisions Twitter is making, they will leave and then Twitter can feel sorry for screwing it up.
I don't know why people expect to use a free service like they are owed something. If you were paying for your username, it would make sense, but you're not, so shut up (tongue-in-cheek)!
While on one hand you make a point, on the other hand, perhaps this article can simply be considered community advice to Twitter: if Twitter wants to protect the stability of its platform then perhaps it should consider more explicitly stating its Terms of Service with respect to username ownership.
If a party owns the rights to a particular trademark, that party can sue subsequent parties for trademark infringement. 15 U.S.C. §§ 1114, 1125. The standard is "likelihood of confusion." To be more specific, the use of a trademark in connection with the sale of a good constitutes infringement if it is likely to cause consumer confusion as to the source of those goods or as to the sponsorship or approval of such goods. In deciding whether consumers are likely to be confused, the courts will typically look to a number of factors, including: (1) the strength of the mark; (2) the proximity of the goods; (3) the similarity of the marks; (4) evidence of actual confusion; (5) the similarity of marketing channels used; (6) the degree of caution exercised by the typical purchaser; (7) the defendant's intent.
I would say that in this case, the OP's argument fails in just about all of those factors listed above. The true trademark holder has exclusive rights to market their product as they see fit.
