What If Someone’s Got Your Name?
Twitter has been around long enough now that a lot of the most desirable usernames have already been snapped up. If you go to sign up and find that your name has already been claimed by someone who doesn’t use the account, you might feel really annoyed. However, if you’re hoping to claim the username for yourself, I’ve got some bad news. Twitter used to disable inactive accounts, freeing up the handles for other people, but the policy has changed, and Twitter now just advises users to come up with variations on the name they want – by adding numbers, underscores, or abbreviations.
Brian Westcott probably doesn’t have to field as many tweets like this since changing his handle
brand when they agreed to pay $50,000 to local charities (which is nice). He now goes by @adamdoppelt.
Try To Sell It
Doppelt’s deal might seem like a reasonable response to owning a Twitter username that other people want – after all, plenty of people got payouts by buying up brand-relevant URLs and convincing the real brands to pay them to release them, and now that Twitter accounts are as important as websites were in the early 2000s, you’d think there’d be money to be made there. Certainly some people have tried to either buy or sell desirable Twitter handles. Former pro-skateboard Rob Dyrdek, for example, has tried in the past to buy @rob from its current owner, Rob Bertholf. Unfortunately for him, Bertholf is in marketing, and understands too much about search engine optimisation to be willing to part with it. Naoki Hiroshima, who owns @N, has also said he’s been offered $50,000 to sell his handle, but he too turned it down. Undoubtedly some people have successfully exchanged money for Twitter cred, but before you go registering hundreds of celeb-like Twitter accounts, be careful – it’s actually against Twitter’s rules, and they’re pretty strict about it. On Twitter’s support page, it explains
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Issue 1406
that username squatting is prohibited, and that attempts to “sell, buy, or solicit other forms of payment in exchange for usernames are also violations and may result in permanent account suspension.” Trying to sell prime Twitter real estate, then, might result in the username being taken out of the equation completely.
Have It Taken Off You
That’s not the only way Twitter handles username squatting, either. If a brand or
Twitter’s Trademark Policy
celebrity approaches Twitter to complain that their username has been taken by an impostor, Twitter sometimes decides to just hand over the account. American blogger Sapphire used to tweet as @sapphirecut, until one day she woke up and found messages from Twitter explaining that, due to a copyright request, her handle had been transferred to someone else and her account had been renamed. After challenging the decision, she ended up with the handle @Sapphire, which is arguably better anyway – although her current bio does note “Am NOT a Lounge, Club, Event.” An even more dramatic battle raged over ownership of the username @Chase. Chase Giunta originally registered the
Twitter has revised its rules on usernames a few times over the years, due to issues of squatting and mistaken identity. Its current policy on trademarks states: “Using a company or business name, logo, or other trademark-protected materials in a manner that may mislead or confuse others with regard to its brand or business affiliation may be considered a trademark policy violation.” In other words, you can’t sign up as @Micro__Mart, use the magazine’s logo, and pretend to be us. When a violation is reported to Twitter, there are a few different outcomes. If Twitter agrees that the account is intended to mislead customers or fans, it’ll suspend the account and email the owner to tell them why. If it’s confusing people, but not intentionally, Twitter will ask the account holder to clarify, and may decide to give the name to the trademark holder. Or, if Twitter thinks there is no violation, because the tweeter is using the name for a completely different purpose, it might just be left alone. Fan accounts are a kind of grey area, since Twitter says users are allowed to use brand names and images for the purpose of reporting news or giving commentary. They do have to make it clear they’re not actually Harry Styles or Lady Gaga or whoever, though, and the username should reflect that. Twitter will, and has, removed accounts that are just trying to trick fans.