Twitter Now Enforcing Trademarks

jilliantate — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:02:05 +0000

I wrote to Twitter this morning (via their lawenforcement @ twitter (dot) com) address, to complain that a client’s trademarks were being used illicitly. The client is a well known brand, and the violator was using their product name to sell knock-offs. I didn’t expect much of a response – after all, even Google isn’t that vigilant about protecting trademark use.

Regardless, I did a little research, and found one great article that proved we were in the right. The violator was using the client’s brand to confuse consumers into buying a competing product. Clear trademark infringement. I just wasn’t sure how much bandwidth Twitter dedicated to these issues.

I was very pleasantly surprised. I received an auto-response confirming Twitter’s policies on infringement, which includes a crackdown on cyber-squatting. Then I got an email from Twitter’s support, within three hours, to confirm that they had disabled the violating account. Case closed.

I’m very impressed with Twitter’s support levels on this subject. I have several clients with well known brands that are leveraged by competitors – especially competitors with MLM marketing schemes. It’s hard to stamp out that kind of low-level violation, when it’s small time individuals. But Twitter has evidently brought in the support to keep on top of it. Maybe this is part of their long term business strategy to keep advertisers happy??

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Twitter Now Enforcing Trademarks