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Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

bsky.app

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Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#31

Post by leafo »

I'm the one running itch.io, so here's some more context for you:

From what I can tell, some person made a fan page for an existing Funko Pop video game (Funko Fusion), with links to the official site and screenshots of the game. The BrandShield software is probably instructed to eradicate all "unauthorized" use of their trademark, so they sent reports independently to our host and registrar claiming there was "fraud and phishing" going on, likely to cause escalation instead of doing the expected DMCA/cease-and-desist. Because of this, I honestly think they're the malicious actor in all of this. Their website, if you care: https://www.brandshield.com/

About 5 or 6 days ago, I received these reports on our host (Linode) and from our registrar (iwantmyname). I expressed my disappointment in my responses to both of them but told them I had removed the page and disabled the account. Linode confirmed and closed the case. iwantmyname never responded. This evening, I got a downtime alert, and while debugging, I noticed that the domain status had been set to "serverHold" on iwantmyname's domain panel. We have no other abuse reports from iwantmyname other than this one. I'm assuming no one on their end "closed" the ticket, so it went into an automatic system to disable the domain after some number of days.

I've been trying to get in touch with them via their abuse and support emails, but no response likely due to the time of day, so I decided to "escalate" the issue myself on social media.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#32

Post by sureglymop »

A similar thing has happened to me before. There is a company with the same name as my surname with a trademark for it.

When I registered a domain with my surname in it, the registrar had an automatic process in place that checked for this trademark and took away access of the domain. So far so good. The problem was that the registrar and its support then ghosted me and also never refunded me for the money already paid to lease the domain for a year. Overall it was a bad experienced with bad communication that made me switch registrar (note: this was a different registrar than mentioned here).

I think one of the problems is that as more and more individual consumers buy domains, certain legal processes and automation are not ready for that. A good registrar should anticipate that an individual private consumer may not have the legal experience or knowledge to deal with just being hit with something they were never explicitly warned of.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#33

Post by Retr0id »

robin_reala wrote: post #29
haunter wrote: post #17

Slight off topic but interesting that the post has similar interaction stats (replies and reposts/quotes) between Twitter and Bluesky except the likes which are 3x higher on the former https://files.catbox.moe/82x7ue.jpeg

Luckily with Bluesky you can link to a post and everyone can see the replies.

For now! The bluesky URL contains "itch.io" (their handle), and under atproto, DNS name resolution is actually an integral part of handle resolution. It will start 404ing if/when relevant caches expire.

This one uses the "DID", not the handle, and will not 404: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:oy37ivqnriw6nx3lrbcht2u3/po... (cc dang)

Open issue regarding making bsky URLs less fragile while also not looking ugly: https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app/issues/1221

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#34

Post by seanthemon »

leafo wrote: post #31

I'm the one running itch.io, so here's some more context for you: From what I can tell, some person made a fan page for an existing Funko Pop video game (Funko Fusion), with links to the official site and screenshots of the game. The BrandShield software is probably instructed to eradicate all "unauthorized" use of their trademark, so they sent reports independently to our host and registrar claiming there was "fraud…

man, this shit is ridiculous.. now we can't even make fan pages?

Will you be moving away from this registrar? It seems like it could very easily be abused again.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#35

Post by weinzierl »

paxys wrote: post #5
bpye wrote: post #4

The registrar in question is iwantmyname, so I guess you can add them to your "do not use" list.

I feel like it's better to have a "do use" list for something as important as a domain name registrar. - Namecheap - Cloudflare - Route 53 (if on AWS) Any others?

easyDNS (not to be confused with DNSEasy or DNS Made Easy). Very happy customer for many years and there are not many companies I can say that about.

If you are in Germany donaindiscount24.com is good option too.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#36

Post by NetOpWibby »

jarofgreen wrote: post #16
tucnak wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gandi?

They were sold to another company a year or two ago and now some people are a bit wary

I've noticed that Gandi has become SUPER expensive as opposed to Hover lately as well. I'm just letting domains expire instead.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#37

Post by seanthemon »

paxys wrote: post #5
bpye wrote: post #4

The registrar in question is iwantmyname, so I guess you can add them to your "do not use" list.

I feel like it's better to have a "do use" list for something as important as a domain name registrar. - Namecheap - Cloudflare - Route 53 (if on AWS) Any others?

I've been using namecheap for over a decade and have had zero issues with them.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#38

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

leafo wrote: post #31

I'm the one running itch.io, so here's some more context for you: From what I can tell, some person made a fan page for an existing Funko Pop video game (Funko Fusion), with links to the official site and screenshots of the game. The BrandShield software is probably instructed to eradicate all "unauthorized" use of their trademark, so they sent reports independently to our host and registrar claiming there was "fraud…

I noticed that iwantmyname has very little presence on social media: no bluesky account and a twitter account that posts once or twice a year. That wouldn't necessarily be a problem if they responded to emergencies like this promptly, but they clearly don't so it is.

I also wonder if their "automatically disable" policy takes size/importance of site into account. Is this how they would treat all their domain owners, regardless of significance?

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#39

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

seanthemon wrote: post #34
leafo wrote: post #31

I'm the one running itch.io, so here's some more context for you: From what I can tell, some person made a fan page for an existing Funko Pop video game (Funko Fusion), with links to the official site and screenshots of the game. The BrandShield software is probably instructed to eradicate all "unauthorized" use of their trademark, so they sent reports independently to our host and registrar claiming there was "fraud…

man, this shit is ridiculous.. now we can't even make fan pages? Will you be moving away from this registrar? It seems like it could very easily be abused again.

After this, everyone will be moving away from this registrar...

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#40

Post by em-bee »

jarofgreen wrote: post #16
tucnak wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gandi?

They were sold to another company a year or two ago and now some people are a bit wary

i just moved all my domains off gandi because they doubled or tripled the renewal prices.

i am guessing they are milking their existing customers who don't notice or don't have the knowhow or resources to move their domains, and once those wise up to that they will lose a lot of them

apart from prices their operation didn't seem to change after the sale. although i only have a few domains so i probably didn't interact with them enough to notice anything else

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