6 ms·

Evan - Twitter needs a better policy on Usernames

60 points by sant0sk1 18y ago

geuis 18y ago
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.
- swombat 18y ago
  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.
  - catch23 18y ago
    then sell celtics their name for $10 million. Sounds like a good plan to me! Or maybe twitter is the one selling the celtics their brand name for $10 million...
  - kragen 18y ago
    In this case he was using the username "celtics" to provide updates about the Boston Celtics, with their logo as the page background.
  - webwright 18y ago
    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?
    - dmv 18y ago
      Did you pick McDonalds.com because of this? http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/mcdonalds.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/mcdonalds.html 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.
    - tolmasky 18y ago
      This is nothing like that since its not a publicly-available domain (with ties to the govt. no less), but a private username. If I held a party at my house where I gave out unique nametags, the Celtics wouldn't have the right over the one that said "celtics" on it.
      - webwright 18y ago
        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.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- thinkzig 18y ago
  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.
  - jerf 18y ago
    Define "right to a name". (I've actually got some potential thoughts, but I'd like to not poison the well.)
    - thinkzig 18y ago
      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.
      - jerf 18y ago
        OK. 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.)
- rokhayakebe 18y ago
  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.
  - radley 18y ago
    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.
  - Retric 18y ago
    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.
  - GHFigs 18y ago
    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.
  - kragen 18y ago
    “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.
- jodrellblank 18y ago
  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.
- jamiequint 18y ago
  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.
- Tichy 18y ago
  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.
- sh1mmer 18y ago
  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.
- iamdave 18y ago
  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.
AndrewWarner 18y ago
This issue isn't unique to Twitter. Anyone who's building a site today is going to have these issues. We need some clever solutions here.
- axod 18y ago
  Isn't it the same issue as last year, and the last 10 years? Picking usernames etc isn't a new practice.
  - AndrewWarner 18y ago
    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. What do you think?
    - wmf 18y ago
      We need one public identifier that works across all networks. OpenID?
    - twopoint718 18y ago
      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?
- dsims 18y ago
  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.
imp 18y ago
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. http://twitter.com/bostonceltics http://twitter.com/bostonceltics
- GHFigs 18y ago
  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. See the list here, and see how many are still around: http://blog.stevepoland.com/first-twitter-bots-launched-sports-teams-weather-stock-quotes/ http://blog.stevepoland.com/first-twitter-bots-launched-spor...
  - imp 18y ago
    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.
aditya 18y ago
If you don't like what Twitter is doing, leave. 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)!
- zack 18y ago
  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.
wmf 18y ago
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)
- kragen 18y ago
  DNS's dispute resolution process is pretty badly broken, don't you think?
  - wmf 18y ago
    I think there is some hope for the UDRP. OTOH Twitter is completely unregulated. Between corporatism and benevolent dictatorship, it's a tough decision.
Goronmon 18y ago
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.
subpixel 18y ago
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?).
johnrob 18y ago
If you don't like the rules, then don't play in twitter's walled garden.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
GHFigs 18y ago
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.
jamiequint 18y ago
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.
- GHFigs 18y ago
  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.
  - jamiequint 18y ago
designtofly 18y ago
I would advocate a system similar to that used in trademark infringement cases. From http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/metaschool/fisher/domain/tm.htm http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/metaschool/fisher/domain/tm.htm 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.
jwr 18y ago
So, is that a twitter name squatter whining?

60 points by sant0sk1 18y ago

geuis 18y ago

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.

swombat 18y ago
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.
- catch23 18y ago
  then sell celtics their name for $10 million. Sounds like a good plan to me! Or maybe twitter is the one selling the celtics their brand name for $10 million...
- kragen 18y ago
  In this case he was using the username "celtics" to provide updates about the Boston Celtics, with their logo as the page background.
- webwright 18y ago
  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?
  - dmv 18y ago
    Did you pick McDonalds.com because of this? http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/mcdonalds.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/mcdonalds.html 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.
  - tolmasky 18y ago
    This is nothing like that since its not a publicly-available domain (with ties to the govt. no less), but a private username. If I held a party at my house where I gave out unique nametags, the Celtics wouldn't have the right over the one that said "celtics" on it.
    - webwright 18y ago
      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.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
thinkzig 18y ago
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.
- jerf 18y ago
  Define "right to a name". (I've actually got some potential thoughts, but I'd like to not poison the well.)
  - thinkzig 18y ago
    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.
    - jerf 18y ago
      OK. 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.)
rokhayakebe 18y ago
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.
- radley 18y ago
  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.
- Retric 18y ago
  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.
- GHFigs 18y ago
  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.
- kragen 18y ago
  “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.
jodrellblank 18y ago
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.
jamiequint 18y ago
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.
Tichy 18y ago
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.
sh1mmer 18y ago
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.
iamdave 18y ago
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.

AndrewWarner 18y ago

This issue isn't unique to Twitter. Anyone who's building a site today is going to have these issues. We need some clever solutions here.

axod 18y ago
Isn't it the same issue as last year, and the last 10 years? Picking usernames etc isn't a new practice.
- AndrewWarner 18y ago
  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. What do you think?
  - wmf 18y ago
    We need one public identifier that works across all networks. OpenID?
  - twopoint718 18y ago
    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?
dsims 18y ago
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.

imp 18y ago

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. http://twitter.com/bostonceltics http://twitter.com/bostonceltics

GHFigs 18y ago
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. See the list here, and see how many are still around: http://blog.stevepoland.com/first-twitter-bots-launched-sports-teams-weather-stock-quotes/ http://blog.stevepoland.com/first-twitter-bots-launched-spor...
- imp 18y ago
  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.

aditya 18y ago

If you don't like what Twitter is doing, leave. 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)!

zack 18y ago
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.

wmf 18y ago

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)

kragen 18y ago
DNS's dispute resolution process is pretty badly broken, don't you think?
- wmf 18y ago
  I think there is some hope for the UDRP. OTOH Twitter is completely unregulated. Between corporatism and benevolent dictatorship, it's a tough decision.

Goronmon 18y ago

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.

subpixel 18y ago

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?).

johnrob 18y ago

If you don't like the rules, then don't play in twitter's walled garden.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

GHFigs 18y ago

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.

jamiequint 18y ago

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.

GHFigs 18y ago
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.
- jamiequint 18y ago

designtofly 18y ago

I would advocate a system similar to that used in trademark infringement cases. From http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/metaschool/fisher/domain/tm.htm http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/metaschool/fisher/domain/tm.htm 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.

jwr 18y ago

So, is that a twitter name squatter whining?