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Comment by josefresco | Hacker News Reader

Before we all seemingly jump on the "she should have updated her account" bandwagon, it would help to see actual evidence of her inactivity, or at least evidence/statements in Instagram's TOS that state what "inactive" really means.

This doesn't cut it: "We encourage people to actively log in and use Instagram once they create an account."

How long can I go idle before Instagram takes my account back?

Also, as someone else stated in this thread the very least Instagram could have done was to email her and inform her that she was about to lose her account due to inactivity.

Lastly, it's important to note that Instagram didn't just "prune" her account, they renamed it and gave her original account name to an employee. If they were concerned with squatters or dormant accounts they would have actually nixed the account, not renamed it to something else.

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I wonder if she could claim the @InstagramHelp twitter account. It seems dormant to me...

Twitter no longer let anyone claim any inactive accounts. And only honour Trademark based claims if it's obvious there was intent to confuse and it's causing confusion.

It would be a no go.

I have seen at least two instances of Twitter staff taking old, unused short handles after being hired there. But I don't know about the specific policy decision you seem to be referencing (and I don't know whether that decision exists).

Twitter no longer publicly allows anyone to claim inactive accounts. Informally, Twitter employees (and friends of employees) still have channels they can use to claim inactive accounts.

I can't upvote this comment/joke more. Reminds me of that guy who bought a bank building and forced out the band who foreclosed on him.

Found it: http://business.time.com/2011/06/06/homeowner-forecloses-on-...

On a more serious note, what is the procedure to get one of these dormant accounts? Is at all automatic and on the day I sign up simply makes it available to me? or is there some kind of internal system, or "drop" (as with domains) where these newly renamed accounts are made available? Transparency from Instagram on this issue would be best.

That story is the best thing I've read all day, thank you.

A bit pedantic but Warren Nyerges and his wife, Maureen Collier did not buy out the bank building and force the bank out of it.

Nyerges and Collier won, in court, reimbursement for their attorney fees and then had sheriff enforce the ruling who then proceeded with a foreclosure (which was on the furniture and not on the building).

For the record, Brian addresses her account activity:

> "Her account has been private for a long time. Only posts a few photos of our kids… BUT she often likes and comments and stays connected on her phone with it. In my opinion that’s not really inactive."

https://twitter.com/behoff/status/456501740385226752 https://twitter.com/behoff/status/456501841308569601

I think you're misunderstanding the situation a little bit. They didn't "rename" her account, the article says that @kathleen's visible name was '___kathleen'. What happened is the account got pruned, and the new @kathleen set HER own visible name to '___kathleen', not that his wife's account was renamed to ___kathleen to make room for @kathleen.

Her account didn't get "pruned" they changed her username.

https://twitter.com/kathleenw/status/456425032265523200

I don't know how you came to this conclusion.

There are instagram accounts kathleen (displayed name Kathleen) and ___kathleen (displayed name kathleen).

FWIW, neither of those accounts are the original @kathleen.

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