Twitter Stole My [username] At The Behest of a Corp (why this is a non-story) | Hacker News Reader

Twitter Stole My [username] At The Behest of a Corp (why this is a non-story)

breadpig.posterous.com

28 pointskn0thing21 comments

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.

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.

I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. I think that by offering a service (even a free one) you create a reasonable expectation that you will, in fact, provide that service. You clearly retain the right to stop providing the service whenever you want, but you still have an obligation to treat your users with respect.

It's bad form to hold up a sign that says FREE CANDY and then punch people in the mouth when they ask for some.

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.

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?

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).

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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?

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?

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.

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.

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)...

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.

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).

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.

Someone should make a startup and name it John Smith

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