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Facebook Snatches User’s Vanity URL And Sells It To Harman International

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Re: Facebook Snatches User’s Vanity URL And Sells It To Harman International

#21

Post by Tichy »

jacquesm wrote: post #13
sailormoon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- facebook gives trademark law preference over personal names (they may have been threatened to be sued, but then they should have simply stood up for their users). Sued? For what? Under the Fair Facebook Vanity Names Act? There is no conceivable case Harman would have against FB for URLs on their own site! FB might have a policy which would give companies priority. I think Twitter has been doing something similar wh…

Trademark law would be enough. Whether they would win the suit or not does not matter, they can sue. Whether they have a case or not is for a judge to decide.

I think trademark only holds if you use the name for a similar thing like the trademark holder?

Re: Facebook Snatches User’s Vanity URL And Sells It To Harman International

#22

Post by joezydeco »

Tichy wrote: post #14

"One case in mind was for the new movie Avatar, we were able to give promotional items to the owner of twitter.com/avtr for Coke Zero" The nerve of some people. OK, maybe "avtr" is not all that great, but to think that they'll give you some useless plastic crap (or poisonous coke) and then proceed to make their millions. It just shows how the big corps think about the "normal" people - they are just sheep, or "consum…

Hey, corporations are people too! The Supreme Court said so! Be nice!

Re: Facebook Snatches User’s Vanity URL And Sells It To Harman International

#23

Post by [deleted] »

jacquesm wrote: post #13
sailormoon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- facebook gives trademark law preference over personal names (they may have been threatened to be sued, but then they should have simply stood up for their users). Sued? For what? Under the Fair Facebook Vanity Names Act? There is no conceivable case Harman would have against FB for URLs on their own site! FB might have a policy which would give companies priority. I think Twitter has been doing something similar wh…

Trademark law would be enough. Whether they would win the suit or not does not matter, they can sue. Whether they have a case or not is for a judge to decide.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Snatches User’s Vanity URL And Sells It To Harman International

#24

Post by jacquesm »

hga wrote: post #20
jacquesm wrote: post #2

Corporation puts bottom line ahead of its users. Color me surprised, really I am totally stunned. The reason the phone company can't use your phone number the minute you cancel your contract is so that there will not be a large number of people dialing that number and getting someone else than the one they expect. Since 'the real Harman' has probably done more than his share to promote this particular URL he's not on…

Modification suggested: A corporation that many people feel has something of a "do be evil" attitude does all this. Google's imperfect but still clear bias towards "don't be evil" helps them to avoid poisoning the well; if Facebook maintains its current culture, it might not end up well for them. Victory can be fleeting (e.g. see MySpace).

I fully agree.

Facebook will eventually be supplanted by 'the next facebook', in whatever form it will come.

Lots of people disagree with this, but I feel that the root of their demise is in the seed of their origin. You can go a long way on a bad mentality but eventually it will catch up with you.

That said I don't think they'll ever die completely, just very slowly wither away while one or more other networks will take its place.

I believe facebook does not partake in open social precisely because they are afraid of that.

A really good social site has no fears of losing its users and so does not need to lock them in.

Re: Facebook Snatches User’s Vanity URL And Sells It To Harman International

#25

Post by jacquesm »

Tichy wrote: post #21
jacquesm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trademark law would be enough. Whether they would win the suit or not does not matter, they can sue. Whether they have a case or not is for a judge to decide.

I think trademark only holds if you use the name for a similar thing like the trademark holder?

Yes, but that has never stopped parties from suing.

See the case of 'Nissan' vs 'Nissan'

http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2001/01/40939

and:

http://nissan.com/

Re: Facebook Snatches User’s Vanity URL And Sells It To Harman International

#26

Post by IsaacL »

bensummers wrote: post #3

We already have a good system for establishing identity on the internet. They're called domain names, and they have reasonable ownership semantics and established case law. I have no idea why anyone thinks it's a good idea to use a URL on someone's platform with ToS allowing arbitrary revocation and reassignment.

I agree; I wrote something similar as a comment on the TC post. I really can't see a vanity URL on someone else's site that you got for free is really your property, so all this talk about Facebook 'snatching' it from him is over-dramatic.

Re: Facebook Snatches User’s Vanity URL And Sells It To Harman International

#27

Post by nfnaaron »

joezydeco wrote: post #22
Tichy wrote: post #14

"One case in mind was for the new movie Avatar, we were able to give promotional items to the owner of twitter.com/avtr for Coke Zero" The nerve of some people. OK, maybe "avtr" is not all that great, but to think that they'll give you some useless plastic crap (or poisonous coke) and then proceed to make their millions. It just shows how the big corps think about the "normal" people - they are just sheep, or "consum…

Hey, corporations are people too! The Supreme Court said so! Be nice!

Actually corporations are more than people. This case is one data point.

I can't imagine Harman Int paid facebook so much money to be noticable when it's added to their pile.

We (many of us) just assume that a corporation has a right, stronger than an individual, to a name in a medium.

If I were human Harman I would have responded to corporate Harman that, thank you very much but facebook has already stolen my name on your behalf, and cc'd the LA Times in the response.

Re: Facebook Snatches User’s Vanity URL And Sells It To Harman International

#28

Post by philh »

Tichy wrote: post #14

"One case in mind was for the new movie Avatar, we were able to give promotional items to the owner of twitter.com/avtr for Coke Zero" The nerve of some people. OK, maybe "avtr" is not all that great, but to think that they'll give you some useless plastic crap (or poisonous coke) and then proceed to make their millions. It just shows how the big corps think about the "normal" people - they are just sheep, or "consum…

But twitter.com/avtr is basically worthless for most people. Clearly noone deserves to earn millions just for registering /avtr. If they think it's worth less than promotional items, they're getting a good deal. There's no reason they couldn't hold out for more if they wanted, but they'd have to run the risk that at some point it wouldn't be worth buying.

Further, /avtr is probably not much better than /avatar, /avatarfilm, or a number of others. When the demand is for precisely one unit, and more than one unit of supply exists, it seems natural that the price is going to be low.

Re: Facebook Snatches User’s Vanity URL And Sells It To Harman International

#29

Post by abdulhaq »

A bit off topic but Facebook sends fake emails to me, claiming to be from my wife's Facebook account, inviting me to join Facebook. She actually doesn't use her account and only set it up as a test, months ago. I guess they can use paid-for email logs farming the to: and cc:, to associate her to me. Anyone else experienced that?
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