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Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

bsky.app

111–120 of 493 posts

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#111
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course the problem is that legally speaking, they don't cause any damage - service providers they target cause the damage. BS have no true authority over these service providers, just the threat of some legal claim. The service providers comply voluntarily as they don't want to spend time checking if the claim is valid.

I don't think this is the kind of advice a good lawyer would give. BrandShield, Funko, and iwantmyname all caused serious financial harm through, at a minimum, tortious negligence. I'm not a lawyer, but even a yokel like me knows there's more to this legally than a shrug and "the software did it".

It’s clear that you’re not a lawyer, because if you were you’d know that there’s no established duty of care between BrandShield and web masters.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#112
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting - most Bluesky accounts, especially those related to gaming, are reporting higher engagement stats on Bluesky, at least relatively if not absolutely.

[flagged]

Well of course, your bot is having a wonderful time interacting with other bots. A whole bunch of resources wasted while making everything worse for real humans.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#113
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…

Brandshield is bad for overreacting, and iwantmyname is very bad for hosting such a crucial infrastructure, and having not responded to a paying customer with a good track record. I honestly don't think time of day matters, as long as the nature of the service is that it's provided and used 24/7, support staff should also be there 24/7.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#114
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 really wish BrandShield didn't use AI as a marketing term. It just looks like it's doing a generic ctrl-F on webpages? Then things like this happen, and people think "ooh AI is bad, the bubble must burst" when this has nothing to do with that in the first place, and the real issue was that they sent a "fraud/phishing report" rather than a "trademark infringement" report. Then I also wish that people who knew better…

I mean, whether this has anything to do with AI or not (I’d buy that they’re using LLMs to write abuse letters or similar) it fits very nicely into the general pattern of AI breaking the internet through an endless deluge of worthless misleading spam. So, perhaps call it honorary AI?

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#116
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gandi?

They hiked prices massively so I wanted to transfer away, it was a massive shitshow. Auth-codes given on the website were expired and they took 2 weeks to give me the correct ones near the end of the registry period. Support was extremely unresponsive. As this this was a side project I couldn't spent time on every day my domain went into quarantine for a short time. They answered 2 days before the end of the rental p…

Wow, I never knew that to be the case! How would I find a registrar that supports .at LTD? Cloudflare, AWS, Google—neither supports it.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish BrandShield didn't use AI as a marketing term. It just looks like it's doing a generic ctrl-F on webpages? Then things like this happen, and people think "ooh AI is bad, the bubble must burst" when this has nothing to do with that in the first place, and the real issue was that they sent a "fraud/phishing report" rather than a "trademark infringement" report. Then I also wish that people who knew better…

I fear that ship has already sailed. I think the grifters and scammers have already abused the term enough that even decent uses of it are now tainted. I know that the two aren't strictly the same, but I would suggest using "Machine Learning" instead, which I think has more respectable connotations.

AS IS TRADITION.

(After the previous AI bubble, no-one mentioned the dread term for about 20 years, instead using the safely ultra-broad umbrella term.)

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#118
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…

It's surprising that this happened at all. Isn't it in most business's best interests to be aware of their most high-profile customers? If this was an automatic process, it's pretty disappointing that it even occurred. If I was running a SaaS, I'd probably want to mark my important accounts so an actual human has to investigate any raised alerts instead of being dealt with by a cron.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

You'd think, or hope, but GoDaddy and other actors proved over the years that this is not the case. I think that the kind of site most impacted by an event like this are social sites, where if people leave, they might take their networks with them. But a normal b2c service provider just needs to update their PR and prices and business will be back to usual.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#120
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…

This issue aside, thanks for doing what you do. I was kind of expecting Itch to get sold to some holdings or casino company at some point, as good things tend to go, but I've been happily surprised to see it mature independently throughout the years.

I agree itch.io is awesome!

Edit: And i'm happy to see that it's working again as of 2024-12-09 12:27 UTC+1

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