This Week We Got The Twitter Handle @TheDomains Under An “Brand Impersonation” Claim

by

About a month ago Abdu from Domainsville.com alerted me that the twitter handle @thedomains was controlled by a third party who was not using it.

I was using @berkens as my twitter handle for the blog, but once he said it, it made perfect sense that my Twitter handle for the blog should match the name of the blog so following Abdu instructions and filed a claim with Twitter for Brand Impersonation and after about two week I was awarded the handle of @thedomains early last week.

I switched the Twitter handle for the blog from @berkens to @thedomains and then re-registered @berkens as soon as it was released

So if you want to follow TheDomains.com, on Twitter you can now do so by clicking here.

If you want to follow my own personal non-blog type of thoughts you can follow me on @berkens by clicking here.

We also tweet our domain name sales at Most Wanted Domains on our Twitter account which is @MWD which you can click here to  follow.

Big thanks to Abdu at Domainsville for the heads up and help and the folks at Twitter.com

 

 

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

Comments

  2. windy city says

    “Will Twitter Award @MWD to MWD.COM ”

    …Interesting, why would it or why wouldn’t it?

  5. Dirk says

    So, if own Soc.com and have a blog attached to it and I find out somebody uses the @Soc handle on twitter, do I get that handle? Sounds like the UDRP crap to me all over again, except on twitter.

    What a f’ing joke.

  6. G Ariyas says

    You’ll only get the username if:
    1. The username name is inactive.
    2. The owner of the username is impersonating you.
    3. The username is infringing on your trademark.

  7. G Ariyas says

    If the user hasn’t tweeted yet then there’s no way to know if the account is inactive. My claim for @myname was rejected because the user was using the name privately.

  14. HYPOCRITE says

    MHB,

    You write all the time about REVERSE DOMAIN HIJACKING, yet right here is an example of a GENERIC twitter handle simply not being used (certainly was not making anyone any money) and you simply filed a twitter version of UDRP to get your handle.

    Now think of the guy that owned that handle, instead of properly being compensated for his registration. You get it for nothing. Inserting “THE” before domains and suddenly someone is “squatting” on your brand.

    IMO this shows the hypocrisy of this blog, when it comes to what is yours it is OK to be a thief with legal loopholes.

    Kudos on stealing your twitter handle and using the dispute process to get a generic handle without paying a cent.

  15. domainer says

    if the guy had thedomainscom or thedomainsdotcom that would be something, thedomains without proff of bad faith is just unused generics in twitter terms

  16. Mr.T says

    Hypocrite, I see where you’re coming from, but don’t forget that the Twitter policy strictly forbids buying / selling usernames. So what other choices did MB have if the account wasn’t active?

  17. adrian keys says

    “…don’t forget that the Twitter policy strictly forbids buying / selling usernames. So what other choices did MB have if the account wasn’t active?”

    Well…it could be done as a private deal but why pay money if you don’t have to. Also how do you even begin to establish a reasonable value…at least with domains you have some framework.

  18. Michael H. Berkens says

    Of course the other question is how do you find the owner of a Twitter handle?

  19. John Berryhill says

    Twitter is a private service who can assign or re-assign usernames on whatever basis they want.

  21. Back in the real World says

    If an account is unused or a blatant TM there is nothing wrong with requesting it.

    Funny this article is very timely:

    I am currently in the process of buying a domain of a popular term and on Twitter there are a ton of people with the handle @FirstWordSecondWord1 @FirstWordSecondWord2 @SecondWordFirstWord1 @SecondWOrdFirstWord2 + underscores etc etc etc. I checked this morning and @FirstWordSecondWord was free! Twitter sometimes deletes the unused accounts but there are tons of them.

    Michael youve done nothing wrong mate and thanks for the great timing of this post that helped me get my exact match handle!

  22. "No registrant owns their domain, they rent them" says

    “Of course the other question is how do you find the owner of a Twitter handle?”

    One answer may be: “Twitter “owns” all the handles…”

    “No registrant owns their domain, they rent them”

    Another answer may be that the .NET is about to Reverse.the.Flow

    Twitter will have to PAY people to Tweet, just like BLOGs.

    The U.S. FTC now requires that BLOGs like this disclose what people are paid to post. Attorneys trolling for work here also have to disclose their clients.