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I'm siding with geius on this one. To the extent that no money changed hands and Steve wasn't paying them to use the celtics usename, then I think Twitter can do whatever they want whenever they want.

It may not be good karma for them to take the names without warning, but Twitter's job is to pay the bills and keep the lights on, not turn down good exposure (and perhaps some coin) to keep one guy happy who didn't have a true right to the name in the first place.

Perhaps they are getting some cash from the Celtics to use the name. So what? If you're one of the tens of thousands of people like Steve that are using Twitter for free to promote a business, then Twitter getting some cash to pay the bills another month is only a good thing.

Define "right to a name".

(I've actually got some potential thoughts, but I'd like to not poison the well.)

By "right to a name" I'm speaking specifically about Steve's right to own the Twitter username celtics. From a "first come, first serve" perspective, I suppose he has a right to use the username... until Twitter deems otherwise.

The terms of service said they could come and take it, and Steve's not paying them any money for exclusive use of the name, so from that standpoint I don't feel he has a right to use the username any more than the Boston Celtics do. It's Twitter - who owns the service - that I think has the right to do what they please.

I'm not saying that I agree with how they handled it and I can see why Steve is pissed off, but I don't think they have any obligation to let Steve keep the username.

OK.

I was kicking around a definition involving trademarks. In general, owning a name that can be seen to infringe a trademark is a problem, no matter how you slice it. The Celtics baseball team have an actual, legal claim to the word "Celtics", which is not unlimited by any means, but is certainly stronger than "some guy registered this name on this site".

Now, had he been some sort of Celtic organization (and I mean the ethnic group, not the team) it might be a more interesting discussion, legally.

(And I'm just skipping out on the ethical issues.)

Of course Twitter can do whatever they want... the question is whether they should want to, in this case.

Twitter don't mandate that you have to use your account for personal reasons only, as far as I know. How you use your account is up to you - that's one of Twitter's strengths... every person uses it in their own way.

I have no sympathy for domain squatters, but I have no sympathy for domain bullies either. the "Boston Celtics", whoever they are, have as little right to the username "celtics" as this guy. As such, he should probably keep it.

then sell celtics their name for $10 million. Sounds like a good plan to me!

Or maybe twitter is the one selling the celtics their brand name for $10 million...

In this case he was using the username "celtics" to provide updates about the Boston Celtics, with their logo as the page background.

If you'd grabbed "celtics.com" do you think you would have a legal right to it? What about McDonalds.com? Why is this different than general brand trademarks as they relate to domain names?

It seems to be a conflict if you're in the same "domain". i.e. If I grab @celtics and talk about Celtic language and culture, it shouldn't be a conflict. If I grab it to build a following about the team, I'm piggybacking on the effort/expense of them building that brand and deserve to have it yanked.

IMO, it's very similar to the Nissan.com case - the owner of that domain is named Nissan and has a business with that name. He got there first, and he's got rights. However, if it was some random guy who put up a splash page or a nissan car site, it's trademark infringement, no?

Did you pick McDonalds.com because of this?

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/mcdonalds.html

Because that's the first thing that came to mind reading this complaint. That was back in the wild days of the Internet, when official company spokespeople could say:

  "Are you finding that the Internet is a 
   big thing?" asked Jane Hulbert, a helpful 
   McDonald's media-relations person, with
   whom I spoke a short while ago.

Same thing here. 18 months ago, Twitter's namespace was considered worthless. Now Twitter leads to live commentary on cable television, celebrities use it, and companies need a Twitter Strategy.

This is nothing like that since its not a publicly-available domain (with ties to the govt. no less), but a private username.

If I held a party at my house where I gave out unique nametags, the Celtics wouldn't have the right over the one that said "celtics" on it.

I guess I did mention the law, but that's not where I was going... But, yes, I know that Twitter has no legal obligation to any party. But if you agree that domain squatters should have to give up domain names to trademark holders, then the parallel holds.

I have no sorrow for land squatters. You have land being created by the universe at no charge. Just because you got to the country a hundred years before anyone else, now you think you can claim all the land you roped off and all the useful mineral content of that land? Sorry, but that just earns a big f*ck you from me.

Domains and account names all have a market value, to suppose that the value should remain at $0 is to ignore the fact that certain names hold value. I'm not sure how anyone expected that these names would not get taken by people who saw the (pretty obvious) fact that these would become "monetarily valuable at a later date"

Hating domain squatters is the equivalent of disagreeing with free market principles in the domain economy. When things have uneven value and are sold for an even amount (free in the case of Twitter) its not surprising that a market develops to regulate this exchange.

In this example Twitter is the central regulator and can control things in a way that benefits them the most. However, if you think they are any more worthy or have less of a profit motive than this other guy you are simply fooling yourself.

I think the point here is that if someone is using a twitter ID for a reasonable use then it's unreasonable for Twitter to turf them off. The use of 'celtics' as an unofficial fan site seems pretty legitimate. Why does a sports team have dibs? If I'm from Ireland can I kick them off? My claim would have more historic president.

Twitter should have a resolution process similar to ICANN.

While I share your frustration with domain squatters, and the such, it's worth noting that you ought to read between the lines with your vociferation.

His account "celtics" was being used for fans to check stats and news on the basketball team. I wouldn't call that no activity. I have the same kind of account on Tumblr for the Indianapolis Colts; pictures I take when I'm at football games or interesting news clips. It's not a dormant account. So on that note, saying "no activity" isn't correct, he was apparently doing something with the accounts.

In defense of name squatters I have to say it is easy to become a squatter without any evil intentions. if you have any idea for a service, you are practically forced to reserve a name first (or risk investing the effort to implementing it in vain). If then for some reason the implementation is delayed, bingo, you have become a name squatter.

At least the writer of that article sounded as if he was planning genuine services for those names, rather than just hoping to sell the names for profit eventually.

First of, you could have skipped the insults. Apparently you do not know much about Steve. I recommend you go read some of his 70+ ideas he posted almost 2 years back.

Secondly, he saw an opportunity when most people did not, so he should totally benefit from it.

18 months ago, most people did not know about Twitter and they could not see it being useful to anyone. Steve did. You should go back to his blog entries at TechQuilaShots. He was sharing ideas on how businesses could take advantage of Twitter. Only a few read his blog and a fewer followed his advices. So he did it. Now they want to take that away from him. Not cool.

That's just it there was no opportunity and Twitter is better off preventing people from trying exploit others by being the first to grab interesting names.

In this case, it's quite clear that Steve saw an opportunity to make money where there wasn't one. His attempt to squat on these "quality" names that were "front row seats" was based on the ridiculous idea that a Twitter name is worth money. He was wrong.

“Secondly, he saw an opportunity when most people did not, so he should totally benefit from it.”

That happened to my wife a couple of months ago; she was trying to use her laptop on the street to record a protest, and someone saw an opportunity where most people did not, and ran off carrying her laptop. I bet he benefited from that.

That someone “saw an opportunity when most people did not” doesn't really tell you anything about whether exploiting that opportunity is moral or immoral.

So Twitter making money by getting the Celtics their @ name is more worthy than letting a guy run fan information using that name? Sorry, but that doesn't make any sense.

The author did not present any evidence that Twitter made money on this. It's only his speculation based on his own valuation of the name.

Since when does Twitter make money anyway?

You fail at reading comprehension.

Feel free to actually say something constructive without being an asshole next time.

Did the guy violate any rules? Not unless you go by a strict definition of Twitter's TOS. Your original analogy makes no sense. The Celtics didn't have the name stolen from them (they never owned it in the first place) and the guy wasn't using it for a non-legitimate reason, so why should he not benefit from the common knowledge of the association of "Celtics" with the Boston Celtics basketball team?

I said, “That someone “saw an opportunity when most people did not” doesn't really tell you anything about whether exploiting that opportunity is moral or immoral.”. Your response was a complete non-sequitur, and furthermore it appeared to attribute to me a position including material facts that are probably false. In the comment to which I am replying, you have called me an “asshole.”

I appreciate your expressed concern for the constructiveness of the conversation. May I suggest that you try a different strategy if a constructive conversation is what you seek? Putting words in the mouths of other participants and name-calling may not be the most effective way to engage in a constructive conversation.

I was just pointing out that rokhayakebe's syllogism, “Secondly, he saw an opportunity when most people did not, so he should totally benefit from it,” depends on an absurd unstated premise. Whether this blogger who we’re talking about happens to be a robo-spamming scumbag or not isn’t really relevant to that.

And that is why you fail at reading comprehension.

First, you asserted that it was wrong for Party B (your wife) to suffer because Party A (a thief) took her laptop. It was unclear whether you were only trying to point out that opportunism isn't always moral, or if you were also making the allegation that what the OP had initially done in this case was immoral. (which it is now clear you were not) I was simply comparing the morality of Twitter in this case to the morality of the OP.

Second, the position I attributed to you was a natural extension of your argument, if you don't qualify such a statement as part of a discussion I'm going to assume you are applying your suggestion to the discussion as a whole. In this case you brought up that opportunism is not always moral, which is true, but you did not exclude the discussion at hand so I made the assumption that you were implying that the OPs stance was immoral as well.

Third, please tell me how you expected "you fail at reading comprehension" to lead to any sort of rational debate before you accuse me of the same. When you say such things without qualification don't be surprised if you get called an asshole, because under the circumstances its likely true.

You still fail at reading comprehension.

You were the one who complained about the discussion not being "constructive," not me. (In the same sentence where you called me an "asshole".) I was just pointing out that you weren't really behaving in a way that often leads to constructive discussion. Consider it a tip. No charge! Feel free to call me an "asshole" as often as you please, if that's what melts your butter. Or a "motherfucker" or "dickhead" if you like. It really doesn't matter to me. But it probably won't lead to constructive conversation!

I pretty much gave up hope of constructive discussion when you put words in my mouth, totally failed to understand what I wrote, and accused Twitter of taking a bribe. So I decided to make fun of you instead.

I guess you have the right to believe whatever lets you sleep well at night :)

Twitter-squatting is not the same as domain-squatting. It's more in line with MySpace which has also reserved the right to manage names as they see fit.

Steve's doing nothing more than assuming an opportunity and making an * of himself by complaining about it.

Totally disagree... And I believe the law does as well, when it comes to domain names (the best precedent I can think of).

If I bought toyota.com, nissan.com, honda.com, etc when domain names first came available, that doesn't mean I have the rights to keep them unless I had legitimate interests in those domain names that didn't compete with the trademark holder (as was the case in the Nissan.com situation).

Certainly, a lot of people benefited from those early buys, but if they got greedy, they generally got sued (and lost). Even typosquatters have successfully been sued.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Trademarks_and_domain...

I've enjoyed some of Steve's writings in the past, but I think he's dead wrong here.

I don't understand the association of capitalism with greed, certainly people who had the foresight to understand that domains would be valuable at some point in the future (and put their money where their mouths were) should be compensated (at a reasonable price) for taking that risk no?

Taking the risk and grabbing something generic-but-powerful, like "business.com" or "porn.com" seems fine. Grabbing someone elses brand name for the purpose of squatting on it and then extorting the trademark owner just seems wrong.

The point is that the domains would have almost ZERO value if the business who has the trademark hadn't spent huge piles of money building the brand and the goodwill around it. In this guys case, he grabs @celtics and tosses up some basketball stats, and he's basically leeching off the brand. It's not dissimilar to setting up a Hamburger stand and calling it "McDonalds" with a stylized "M" logo.

In domain/twitter name case, there's no actual risk being taken. Twitter names are free. Domain names are cheap ($30/year at first). So in my mind, they should be compensated at a reasonable price for the risk they took... Let's say 30x return on whatever they put into it. :-)