PR Firm Accused Of Setting Up Fake Twitter Account Of Competing Firm
from the really? dept
We've all heard about the various fake accounts on Twitter, and even Tony La Russa's misguided lawsuit over a user who put up a fake profile. However, in what appears to be a slightly more serious case of "brandjacking" on Twitter, the Citizen Media Law Project alerts us to a lawsuit involving two PR firms, with one accused of hijacking the identity of the other on Twitter. While it's a bit amusing that the PR firm who was hijacked claims its expertise is in brand management and yet didn't notice that someone else was using its brand on Twitter for two months, the fact that the IP address of whoever signed up for the account came from a competing PR firm suggests questionable intent, and certainly has the potential to be a real trademark issue.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: brandjacking, fraud, impersonator, pr firm, trademark, twitter
Companies: twitter
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One question
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Simple Solution
Somehow I doubt this has happened, more likely the first thing done was lawyer up
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Re: Re: Re: One question
I think it was a valid question as this is a fairly complex issue.
BTW, why does questioning/opposing mikes view should always amount to trolling?
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I am the AC #2 here. Notice that Mike has totally ignored this thread? I wonder why? Maybe he doesn't want to get pinned down by actually putting HIS opinion in black and white.
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Re: One question
From the facts given, it sure looks like a classic trademark infringement situation (i.e., people would be confused). But I didn't think that part was all that interesting, which is why I didn't discuss it. I just found it interesting that a company would mimic a competitor on Twitter.
Not sure what the other anon person is complaining about. I've never been shy about stating my opinions.
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Re: Re: One question
"From the facts given, it sure looks like a classic trademark infringement situation (i.e., people would be confused). But I didn't think that part was all that interesting, which is why I didn't discuss it. I just found it interesting that a company would mimic a competitor on Twitter."
Even at that, you can't say anything definte, you just get slippery and deflect. Congrats.
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