This is exactly why businesses shouldn't be run solely on social media handles. A domain name should be the FIRST destination for customers.
Not disputing whether it's legal or not. Although, it's not completely impossible for a lawyer to find laws that supercedes Twitter's TOS.I'm sorry, I'm not sure how you determined that I support Elon Musk's or xitter's move. And if it wasn't already evident from my use of the term "xitter" pronounced as "shitter", I hope it is more evident now. I do not agree with or support this move. But that's not my point at all.
Irrespective of whether I dislike or do not support this move, it is "allowed" by xitter's ToS (IANAL). And that was my only point. You can assume whatever you want about me, I don't really give a shit. But the ToS is still enforceable and it does (potentially) allow xitter to commandeer a user's handle.
Yes, it is a terrible precedent. Does not make it illegal
If it is allowed, yes he can (and probably will). But what this incident does is reduce users trust in him.
Again, I'm not sure why this is relevant. Can you qualify what financial loss the user has suffered that they need to be compensated for? Was there a financial arrangement between the user and twitter for the use of that "premium" handle? And, importantly, Twitter has not violated any laws. It is a shitty situation, the twitter handle is super premium (I'm even jealous) but irrespective of all our opinions, from a legal perspective, Twitter does not owe the user anything. Look at the who incident without emotion or bias. Ethically, twitter's move is wrong, in extremely poor taste and kills user trust in them. But legally, I believe, it is kosher.
Showboating. This is a bad move on Twitter's part. They're not idiotic enough to not understand that. To try to salvage some PR, they offer these shit "compensatory items" as a sign of good faith. No one is fooled.
Absolutely. It is an extremely weak attempt.
Valid observations.Greetings! Thanks for starting this thread.
The @x situation is not only a cautionary tale about linking a digital identity solely to a social media handle. It's about "the illusion of control" some people are hypnotized by when linking their digital identity to ANY system and/or platform they don't truly control/own. The same applies to centralized domains. For example, UDRPs have been weaponized by companies in the domain space to "seize" names that some folks having been renewing, and in many cases using, for years. This is one clear indicator of "a deeply flawed system/industry".
Some here in the comments are using the @x handle seizure as a springboard for spreading the notion centralized domain names are an asset with a blissful "holding" experience. (Extra emphasis on "holding".) No matter how long folks pay renewals, their names remain at the mercy of ICANN's policies, UDRPs, TLD owners and registrars. These players have obviously been culprits in more name seizures than one. The point here is that we're all gambling whenever we build/operate within "someone else's platform/system". Even here on NamePros.
The Downvote Gang will likely come out swinging because the correlation has been made; but truth is truth regardless of whether we care to acknowledge it or not.
Mel
QUAD Domains
On the basis of what? What loss did the user of @x suffer? And what is the contractual relationship between the user and xitter?
What is the financial loss that the user of @ x suffer? What exactly is it based on? And further, what is the financial contractual relationship between the user and xitter?
Well, a lot of online platforms don't make a profit despite not being shut down. What is your point?
God, You sound like a sorry soul! Ya bring on the anonymous -ve's you cowards. My opinion!Exqueeze me?
What do you think I do for a living? You think food magically falls onto my table?
I got a letter from my HOA that my deck is in bad shape and they are going to fine me if it is not fixed. Now, when I bought my place, I was told that the deck is part of the outside fixtures that the community maintains. Well, gee, they changed that on me somewhere along the line.
So, I've been calling around trying to get someone out here in the middle of the g-d-mmed summer to see if I can get my deck fixed and NOT ONE of them cares about the great injustice done to me. They just want to get paid to fix my deck. I had a guy quote me $3000 a while back, I agreed, and he's been a no-show ever since.
Well, s--t, I guess he found something that pays better than solving my problem.
I have NEVER had an auto mechanic, plumber, or any other service provider do a thing for me because, gosh, I deserved to have it done for me. Every damn one of them wants to make sure they get paid first. It was really unfair that my car broke down when it did, or my pipes burst, or whatever.
Back in 1989, I was sitting out on the side of a snow-covered road in the middle of the night in Indiana with an engine that quit on me. I'd finished by doctoral work and was on my way to my first job clean across the country from Delaware to Utah in a 1972 VW bus that gave out in Indiana. I was alone in the cold in the middle of the night. My first son was born two weeks earlier, my wife was recovering from the C-section, I had maybe $500 to my name, and my first paycheck after years of graduate school was another three weeks away, but I needed to get to that job. Tow truck showed up and the guy wanted CASH before he'd back it up to my front end. Can you imagine? If I didn't have money, he'd have left me out there to freeze.
Hell, I was wheeled into an ER with a heart attack five years ago and the first thing THEY wanted to know how they were going to get paid.
I'm supposed to be up in arms about this guy losing his Twitter handle, and give two s--ts of my time so that HE can get paid?
YOU said you'd "even contribute money to this guys case" - that's how the subject of money came up.
I don't know what you do for a living but how about this. Quit doing whatever it is you do, go around helping other people make money for free, and let me know how that works out for you.
This is the United States of America. If I want to give away services for free - like Twitter does - then I can make any danged rules I want. Any business has the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason or no reason at all - provided it is not among a short list of prohibited reasons (i.e. public accommodations based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, advanced age, or disability). If I don't want to do business with you because your name is "Kevin" and I don't like people named "Kevin", then I'm free to do that. Maybe next week, I won't do business with anyone named "Bryan" and I can do that too.
If I don't like your attitude, I can kick you out of my bar, my shop, my club or whatever else I'm running that you're using. If walk into my restaurant and I want to use your table for something else, I'll re-seat you somewhere else or you can leave. It's my restaurant and I'll run it my way.
I mean, can you imagine?
How about if I give everyone a free picnic out on my deck every Saturday, if I ever find someone I can afford who feels like actually showing up to fix it. Now, one of my deck chairs rocks and the rest of them just stay in one position, so that chair is more comfortable than the others. Every weekend you show up and you sit in that chair that I provide you for free. One weekend, I decide, you know what, I'd like to sit in that chair instead. You get all worked up at me and say you're going to sue me because I'm not going to let you use the chair that I provide you, for free, on my damned deck? GTFO of here.
I've done a lot of work for people who couldn't pay, and quite a bit for people who didn't pay. But nobody is entitled to freebies - including their Twitter handles.
Oh, yeah, I forgot, one thing you ARE entitled to get for free in the US is a lawyer if you are criminally charged and can't afford one. You can't get a doctor, a plumber, an optometrist, or a chicken dinner for free, but you can get a lawyer.
Anyone who wants to pitch in to get my deck fixed, please DM.
Personally, I think Elon should have offered some monetary compensation for rebranding purposes. Just basic human kindness. The Photog was loyal to twitter since 2007; there is value in that.
Look, the financial loss that you're citing is on the basis of the user selling their twitter handle which is expressly forbidden by Twitter. This is like saying that if a piracy network was shut down, they'd have a case for financial losses . Again, from a strictly legal perspective.Not disputing whether it's legal or not. Although, it's not completely impossible for a lawyer to find laws that supercedes Twitter's TOS.
That said, estimating the financial loss is not going to be as difficult as you imagine. Someone already posted that there's a whole forum like Namepros dedicated to the sales, purchases and discussion of SM handles.
Plus, there are claims that Mr. Hang received offers up to a $100K. There's that, too.
A very weak attempt at generating some positive PRWhy bother to compensate him if he suffered no loss?
Well, they can. Should they? I don't think so.By the way, here's an article about Elon/X possibly selling user handles:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/techcr...er-selling-usernames-via-online-auctions/amp/
Will they still snatch those when it suits them?
So if you say resell content from a streaming provider and you get shut down by them, you can try to claim compensation from the service provider? Or you crack a software product and sell it/give it away and you get shut down, can you claim compensation from the software provider?Users may try to claim compensation for their losses from service providers.
There is no financial loss in the sense of the sale of the handle as it is explicitly forbidden by xitter.Based on my finance knowledge, one party is not allowed to make profit knowingly from financial losses of other party
only if such a commercial relationship has been established.Financial losses could include but not limited to time, expenses, loss of communication means (one may claim they use the account for communication. Communication is a right protected by constitutions in many countries), loss of commercial or personal prestige, loss of anything one could claim.
Well, the last line says it all. The ToS and contracts don't matter to you. But that's not how such matters work in the real world. Come to the real world and see what does matter.Service provider may disable using an account if user breaches some rules. But taking over an account from user for commercial profit without any payment to the user is a bad faith. It's a bad faith because the purpose, the main drive is to make profit from losses of user. It doesn't matter what is written in TOS or contracts.
not quite. You're assuming that the provider is a one-trick pony. Shutting down one area of their business might actually make the org more profitable.Those examples are irrelevant. If online providers shut down the service completely, they stop making profit from users.
Well, the last line says it all. The ToS and contracts don't matter to you. But that's not how such matters work in the real world. Come to the real world and see what does matter.
You've had a few mic drops in this thread sirBut the worst ones are the folks who show up to take what you are offering for FREE, at no charge whatsoever, and then believe you owe them something.
So if you say resell content from a streaming provider and you get shut down by them, you can try to claim compensation from the service provider? Or you crack a software product and sell it/give it away and you get shut down, can you claim compensation from the software provider?
There is no financial loss in the sense of the sale of the handle as it is explicitly forbidden by xitter.
If an influence who makes money influencing and their SM account is suspended for any reason that violates the SM content policy which then results in profit for the SM service, are they liable for the financial losses suffered by the influencer?
only if such a commercial relationship has been established.
Well, the last line says it all. The ToS and contracts don't matter to you. But that's not how such matters work in the real world. Come to the real world and see what does matter.
not quite. You're assuming that the provider is a one-trick pony. Shutting down one area of their business might actually make the org more profitable.
The data maybe. But that is all. He still has his account, but on a nice new username.Site owner may only disable an account but can't take over without permission of user. Because user account, even if it's not written in TOS is the property of user.
The data maybe. But that is all. He still has his account, but on a nice new username.
Then again, he can just delete the data. Nobody can force them to host someone else's data.
Multiple parties are trying to trademark Twitter name and the logo.
Well, hopefully you don't have a username that Elon wants or he is just going to snatch it.There's a pattern now
Show attachment 243763
There's a pattern now
Show attachment 243763
We're talking about a custom built website here, not phpbb. Of course you can take a user's username, it's not "over". It's a database that the data can be deleted and manipulated.When a username is available and it's taken by a user it's over. Site owner can't take over it from user.
I used to own and run a semi-popular forum site with around 5k members. I was hosting my forum on a dedicated linux server which I was managing manually. My forum was powered by free and open source phpbb software before I sold it. Site owner or forum admin has an option to disable some usernames such as "admin", "moderator" and other critical usernames. Those critical username examples were displaying on phpbb forum admin panel.
The company will still own the IP for Twitter. Trademarks still stand if they are no longer being used, because they have been used.It's clear that X has intentionally abandoned use of the "Twitter" mark so, yes, even the previous owners of "Twitter" could re-launch as "Twitter" if they wanted to (and if there were no contractual restrictions pursuant to the sale).
But, sure, if someone wants to start a social networking and messaging services named "Twitter", they are free to do so.
Trademarks still stand if they are no longer being used, because they have been used.