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Prince Harry and Meghan took my Instagram name

bbc.com

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Re: Prince Harry and Meghan took my Instagram name

#11

Post by tankenmate »

oarsinsync wrote: post #8
smnrchrds wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Domain names can be taken away too, especially ccTLDs. It is harder to seize a domain, but as we have seen time and time again with TPB, Sci-Hub, Wikileaks, etc. you can lose your domain if entities with enough power and influence want it seized.

I'm not sure that 'especially' applies to ccTLDs any more than gTLDs. Especially since most (all?) gTLDs are covered by the same jurisdiction as the .us ccTLD.

Actually gTLDs are restricted by their contract with ICANN (registry agreement (RA), search google for "ICANN RA"). ccTLDs however merely give lip service to domain registration norms, but as there is no contract beyond "this registry is yours to run" ccTLDs have far more leeway (public pressure sometimes withstanding) to do as they please. It is for reasons similar to this that a fair number of ccTLDs don't run EPP for example (running an EPP service is a requirement in the gTLD contract).

EDIT: further explanation of the gTLD registry agreement

Re: Prince Harry and Meghan took my Instagram name

#12

Post by glvn »

kgwxd wrote: post #4
ct0 wrote: post #2

This goes to show that "your" handle on someone else's platform is never really yours. The only thing that can not be taken away from you is a domain name. Start hosting your voice via your own domain.

I'm pretty sure there are many real world examples of domain names being taken.

Domains are a whole different ball game thought, I've seen instances of domain names being seized for legal reasons (ie FBI seizing domains of torrent sites), but if the UK govt wanted to seize say sussexroyal.com (which btw is available on GoDaddy right now or a cool $70), that would be a much bigger ordeal of going through ICANN vs just "asking" Instagram

He mentioned that he was able to keep his twitter handle and that's most likely because Twitter doesn't pull this sort of shit. I remember a few years back Israel wanted to the twitter handle "@israel" for their official twitter account, asked twitter and they would not hand it over from the original user. I think they ended up paying the original user something like $500k for the handle, which IMO was a damn good deal for the user.

Re: Prince Harry and Meghan took my Instagram name

#13

Post by Raphmedia »

> "I thought 'What's that all about?' He said 'Look on Instagram' so I looked on Instagram and suddenly my handle wasn't @sussexroyal anymore it was @_sussexroyal_

They could have at least explained the situation to that person and allow them to choose a new handle. I would be furious if my handle suddenly had "_" as prefix and suffix. What next, "@xXxsussexroyalxXx"?

Re: Prince Harry and Meghan took my Instagram name

#14

Post by Jorge1o1 »

anonymousiam wrote: post #6
kgwxd wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure there are many real world examples of domain names being taken.

One of the more famous examples was Mike Rowe's domain. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._MikeRoweSoft

Hilarious! They gave him an xbox and some cash.

Re: Prince Harry and Meghan took my Instagram name

#15

Post by 6xggd7 »

joekrill wrote: post #3

We may not have the full story here, but it doesn't seem like Instagram is disputing that they simply took it. I don't see anyone suggesting that they even attempted to contact the guy first. Outrageously poor way to handle things. Also, at what point does an Instagram account become "inactive"?

And what were they going to tell the guy? It's not like they were going to give him a choice, or offer him restitution.

Not doing something like this leads to stupid stuff like having POTUS' handle be "real donald trump" (yes, I know choosing that handle predates his being POTUS, but you get the idea).

Re: Prince Harry and Meghan took my Instagram name

#16

Post by caprese »

ct0 wrote: post #2

This goes to show that "your" handle on someone else's platform is never really yours. The only thing that can not be taken away from you is a domain name. Start hosting your voice via your own domain.

Forget the ToS and sue for damages.

That account had value and this is a poor business practice. Courts award value and the damages are to make a point that its a bad practice if the judge/regulator finds it disturbing. Assuming that the judge / consumer regulator will say "well but you clicked I agree" is a bad assumption, ESPECIALLY when European countries are involved. the company is just as likely to axe that contract logic and just lean on their severability clause to keep the rest of the contract without self-granting the ability to reassign accounts.

Instagram would be in a better place if it generally brokered and escrowed account trading on its platform, and took a fee from that.

Re: Prince Harry and Meghan took my Instagram name

#17

Post by jakejarvis »

ct0 wrote: post #2

This goes to show that "your" handle on someone else's platform is never really yours. The only thing that can not be taken away from you is a domain name. Start hosting your voice via your own domain.

I have to agree that it's the better option.

Certainly not a 100% fail-safe solution – I see people already listing domains that were seized for various inexcusable reasons – but the Nissan.com case [0] (Nissan the car company vs. Mr. Nissan the run-of-the-mill computer sales guy) comes to mind as a classic (and fascinating) counterexample.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Motors_vs._Nissan_Compu...

Re: Prince Harry and Meghan took my Instagram name

#18

Post by ovao »

caprese wrote: post #16
ct0 wrote: post #2

This goes to show that "your" handle on someone else's platform is never really yours. The only thing that can not be taken away from you is a domain name. Start hosting your voice via your own domain.

Forget the ToS and sue for damages. That account had value and this is a poor business practice. Courts award value and the damages are to make a point that its a bad practice if the judge/regulator finds it disturbing. Assuming that the judge / consumer regulator will say "well but you clicked I agree" is a bad assumption, ESPECIALLY when European countries are involved. the company is just as likely to axe that con…

The user still has the account, just with a different handle.

Re: Prince Harry and Meghan took my Instagram name

#19

Post by joekrill »

6xggd7 wrote: post #15
joekrill wrote: post #3

We may not have the full story here, but it doesn't seem like Instagram is disputing that they simply took it. I don't see anyone suggesting that they even attempted to contact the guy first. Outrageously poor way to handle things. Also, at what point does an Instagram account become "inactive"?

And what were they going to tell the guy? It's not like they were going to give him a choice, or offer him restitution. Not doing something like this leads to stupid stuff like having POTUS' handle be "real donald trump" (yes, I know choosing that handle predates his being POTUS, but you get the idea).

You're suggesting that there is no other appropriate handle they could have come up with beyond "sussexroyal"? And beyond that, what gives one person the right more than any other to a particular handle? Even with your POTUS example.

So yes, I think they should have at least asked first and tried to resolve it amicably.

Re: Prince Harry and Meghan took my Instagram name

#20

Post by deweller »

joekrill wrote: post #3

We may not have the full story here, but it doesn't seem like Instagram is disputing that they simply took it. I don't see anyone suggesting that they even attempted to contact the guy first. Outrageously poor way to handle things. Also, at what point does an Instagram account become "inactive"?

Instagram doesn't specify a time for an account to be considered "inactive".

> An account is determined to be inactive based on a number of things, including the date the account was created and whether the account has been sharing photos, commenting on photos, liking photos and logging in.

https://help.instagram.com/397846020286683?helpref=related&r...

From the article:

> Kevin admits that he didn't have that many followers and didn't post often - but he would use it to like and follow other people's posts.

For all we know, he hadn't logged in or posted anything for a year.

But, still, Instagram should be a good landlord here and at least inform the user before just yanking their account handle.

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