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Twitter Takes The Celtics; Yankees Next?
After our post yesterday wondering if there is anything Twitter can’t do, today we’ve learned that a user had his username snatched up like Kobe Bryant steals balls on the court. NY-based blogger and former Techcrunch writer Steve Poland has been creating a variety of Twitter accounts and compares picking up Twitter usernames to the domain name acquisition game.
Apparently now he is getting accounts pulled from him directly from Twitter and yesterday his "Celtics" account was pulled. The account name was changed to, "Boston Celtics News". Poland notes regarding the account removal, "Well, I’m calling bullshit on you right now. Just say it, the Boston Celtics called and they want you to pull rank to get them in the front-row seats of the game (Twitter), when I’ve been holding those seats (username:celtics) for 18 months."
Twitter provided the following statement to Poland:
“You must not abuse, harass, threaten, impersonate or intimidate other Twitter users. In this case "impersonation" is the issue. Impersonation is against our terms of service unless it’s parody. The standard for defining parody is, ‘Would a reasonable person be aware that it’s a joke.’"
It’s pretty interesting that Twitter is pushing their "must not absuse or harass" as a reason for throwing you off their system when I see that behavior every single day and Twitter hasn’t done anything about it. Perhaps these type of "professional" accounts are important for Twitter to pass to the franchise owners because part of Twitter’s monetization will come via charging companies for spreading their messages on Twitter.
Will Twitter need to setup a dispute-resolution process and review board? Does Poland have any recourse to the actions taken by Twitter with regards to the Celtics twitter account?
I’m on the fence here. For the most part I don’t really care that some guy I’ve never heard of wanted to capitalize on the Celtics name but later had it yanked from him. He can figure out a better way to do that than base SEO/squatting tactics. On the other hand, this is a patently authoritarian move that can’t bode well for the general conduct of Twitter’s owners.
Allen, do you see a slippery slope here? Any sympathy for Mr. Poland?
Interesting…is there any official word that Twitter will soon charge companies?
Great post.
I write the blog SistersTalk, which isn’t of the same caliber of Daily Kos, but it’s mine. I’ve had it 6 years and I always use the same picture of my face when I sign up for a SistersTalk account anywhere: MySpace, Facebook, Propeller, DIGG, Twitter, you name it.
A Twitter user started using my picture on his/her account – but couldn’t take the username SistersTalk because I already had it. I contacted Twitter and asked that they have the user remove my image from his/her profile. That user was impersonating me. I didn’t think it was funny at all. If that user had said something (under the guise of SistersTalk) it could potentially ruin my brand. Within days, the user had removed my image and was using someone else’s! I didn’t care though, as long as he wasn’t using mine.
In my opinion, people who snatch up trademarked domain names (or snatch up Twitter accounts and leave them dormant) waiting for the company to BUY those accounts from them are leeches. If you’re not a representative of the Celtics, you shouldn’t be acting as if you are. So what if Twitter hasn’t cracked down on other people doing the same thing. That’s like telling a police officer, “Sure I drink and drive all the time. But my friend does it too, so what are you gonna do about that?”