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Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

bsky.app

121–130 of 493 posts

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#121
post #43
post #7

Brand Shield and other AI slopware needs to be sued to death for all the damage they cause, including their customer's reputation and bottom line

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.

Eh, dunno about that. They made what would appear to be a false complaint; hard to really consider what was going on here ‘fraud and phishing’!

That the magic robot perhaps did it for them matters not at all, in terms of whose fault it is, though a proliferation of magic robots does make junk services like this more of a problem, in that they can flood the internet with nonsense more effectively.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#123
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…

It's possible they were using LLMs (or even just traditional ML algorithms) to choose if a certain webpage was fraud/phishing instead of mere trademark infringement, though. In this case it makes sense that one would be angry that a sapient being didn't first check if the report was accurate before sending it off.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#124
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They used to be really good, independent registrar from New Zealand but I think got acquired sometime a few years ago and went down hill.

The same thing happened to Gandi.

It's crazy how downhill Gandi went in 2 years. Went from decently priced French registar to basically asking for 70€ a year for a mailbox and lately asked me for over 40€ to renew a dot dev domain. I ended up transferring all my domains due to this.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#125
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…

Filing false reports like this should count as fraud.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that's true. Just yesterday I bought a new domain through them. I'm surprised about their slowness. Again, 2 days ago I sent a request via their web-form and less than 24h later it was resolved. Disclosure: I know the founder (Lenz).

Is Lenz happy with how he operates his company?

The GP says they were acquired a few years ago.

So the question should be if Lenz is happy with how those who brought his company are now running it?

Of course that is not the kind of question that a founder should ever answer candidly on the internet :)

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#127
post #57
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…

iwantmyname was bought out by a conglomerate, “Team Internet[1]”, a few years ago. Prices went up, service went down. I’d recommend moving your domains when you can (Porkbun have been good, though I haven’t had any incidents like this). Best of luck! 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Internet

Pro-tip: raise your prices before you need to sell your service to cover expenses

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same thing happened to Gandi.

Gandi went sour when the original French company was forced to open a separate company for the US several years before being sold. IIRC it was related EU privacy but they publicly stated it was about credit card processing.

interesting, do you have a link to more details on why the split company was needed and how it affected using them?

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#130
post #122

[flagged]

It seems like the owner of the domain received notice from the registrar 6 days ago and immediately took action by removing the content referenced in the trademark claim and notifying the registrar.

But they got no response and instead the domain went down today.

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