Third-Party Twitter Developer Sued By Twitter | Hacker News Reader

Third-Party Twitter Developer Sued By Twitter

mytwitterbutler.com

10 pointsolefoo19 comments

Hi Guys,

Yes bad choice of words 'sued' - threatened with legal action is a better choice of words, sorry first time being 'threatened with legal action so freaking out.

this isn't a case of "change the name" they are telling me to stop selling the software!!

So tweetlater, twollow, twollo etc etc Did they also receive the same email tonight?

You know as much as i do from the pdf.

As for the domain name - someone on the twitter dev list ran a quick search. They stopped counting at 21 names.

A quick Google search reveals...

twittercounter.com twitterfall.com twitter-friends.com www.twitter.ca www.tinytwitter.com www.twitterbuttons.com www.accessibletwitter.com twitterfeed.com twitterpatterns.com www.twitterlocal.net www.twitterbackgrounds.com twittergallery.com twitteranalyzer.com whentwitterisdown.com destroytwitter.com blog.twittervotereport.com twitter.pbworks.com twitter.polldaddy.com twitter.alltop.com twitter.infinityward.com twitter.grader.com

and the list goes on...

I'm open to all suggestion on how to handle this legally without costing money - lol i gave the application away for the first month, just started charging as had so many requests.

Would prefer not to stop using it/selling it as plenty of people are finding it beneficial.

Cheers, Dean@MyTwitterButler.com

You use their NAME. Not just a 'tw'. If I launched "ToyotaButler,com" tomorrow, do you think it'd be reasonable for them to gripe about the name? From a purely legal standpoint, they HAVE TO DO THIS to everyone who uses their trademark ("twitter") or it weakens the trademark for when they NEED to defend it.

You are on their platform. They don't like how you're using their platform and consider it spammy. Microsoft would have a right to ban a "Virus Construction Kit" or "Spam Generator" from Windows, right? While you aren't on that level, it's a subjective judgment and they are in charge. Just because people want to pay for it doesn't mean it's good for their ecosystem. I'm sure I could sell the hell out of a Virus Construction Kit, for example. :-)

This is apparently a direct response from the person who wrote the article. Agree with him or not, the post is relevant.

I don't think downmodding is appropriate.

It does seem to be a spamming tool, and they are right about the trademark. You can't just go and use another company's name as part of your product's name or domain. You need to create and build up your own brand.

This is not true. You can use another company's trademark as part of your product's name or domain, so long as it is fair use.

See, for a quick summary, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use_(U.S._trademark_law)

The topic of this submission should be changed, since this developer is not, in fact, being sued by Twitter.

he is not being sued as of now.

its a cease and desist order asking him to stop the spam, change name to not infringe on trademark etc.

From reading it, I lose sympathy rather quickly.

His app auto-follows people based on keyword mentions, which is an annoying marketing tactic. And seems to be what twitter considers spam.

Using 'twitter' in your app name or domain name is a trademark issue; they have to defend their trademark rights.

Twitter is allowed to protect their copyright. It's a C&D. Not particularly interesting.

I think the appropriate way to deal with this would have been for twitter to have something in their T.O.S that states it does not allow this.

Twitter's API Terms of Service - http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Terms-of-Service

Do not create a bot to promote mass following. Twitter enables users to find and connect with people. Mass following does not help users find interesting connections. Applications found to be promoting valueless mass-following or following-ponzi schemes will be promptly blacklisted. So please, spend your time developing something that helps users find people with interesting connections.

Which, spam or trademark infringement? The first is in their TOS, I believe, and I suspect there are better ways of enforcing the latter.

The guy doesn't have a leg to stand on. Simple trademark infringement. Ironic that he reaches out to the Digg community considering Digg has always done the same thing to protect their brand.

With that said, I wish Twitter's engineers were as good at keeping their servers up as their lawyers apparently are at ensuring other developers' servers are down.

Yeah but this guy is an idiot!

I agree with most of the comments that it seems like a spam tool and using twitter in domain name was not probably a good idea. However, I consider the approach that twitter took to be rather an extreme. They should have made an initial move by emailing the guy and asking him to shut down the service and provided reasons for it and given him a chance to change his practices. I just hate the fact that it is so easy to sue in US which IMO is also one of the reasons that insurance costs are so freakin high.

Did you actually read the letter? They haven't filed suit. They aren't trying to recover damages. This guy doesn't need to spend a dollar on legal if he doesn't want to fight Twitter; he just needs to comply with Twitter's demands, or negotiate a better outcome for himself.

Have a look at the PDF he links to at the bottom. They sent the standard cease and desist takedown notice. His post shows just how beneficial a real lawyer is in making legal decisions (note, he's not being sued and the letter doesn't say "we'll sue you").

can someone explain the difference between

"hand over your business, your domain and your software within 12 days" or we'll see you in court

and

"Being Sued" ?

I know the letter is a cease and desist letter but the we'll take leagal action hardly makes it a 'thanks for adding value to the twitter ecosystem love letter'

Cheers, Dean

I can send you a letter that says you have to give me a million dollars or I'll sue you. You can decide whether or not to do as I've asked.

That is a long way from my actually suing you.

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