Mumpreneur outraged at Fairfax over Twitter name ownership
The owner of a nanny services website has complained that Fairfax has taken a Twitter user name which she registered three years ago.
She has also complained that Twitter handed the name to Fairfax without consultation in a way that favoured big companies over small.
Ann Nolan launched Babysitterdirectory.com.au in 2008, and registered the user name @findababysitter. A year later, Fairfax acquired the website Findababysitter.com.au, prompting Nolan to approach Fairfax and offer the company the @findababysitter name for a sum of money.
“We asked Fairfax if they would like to discuss handover of the username. A fair compensation was mentioned. At the time they said they would speak to the team and get back to us. That was four months ago and we heard nothing,” Nolan wrote on her blog.
Nolan told Mumbrella that she never got as far as asking Fairfax for a particular sum of money in exchange for the name.
Last week, Nolan was informed by Twitter that the name @findababysitter had been suspended on the grounds that it was a trademark violation. Nolan objected, arguing that there was no company with that trademark on Twitter when she registered the name.
“How can you possibly retrospectively now say that we have violated a Trademark when at the time we registered the Twitter name in good will? If so, what precedent does this set for all existing [names] Twitter handles?” she wrote.
Twitter responded by offering Nolan a new user name with an underscore on the end: @findababysitter_.
Jane Huxley, digital publisher of Fairfax’s Metro Media division, told Mumbrella: “We don’t get out of bed every morning and think, whose name can we take today? We’re not out to get small businesses. The bottom line is, we hold the trademark.”
“It would be misleading for people in the Twitterverse if the @findababysitter name was registered to anyone but us, as owners of Findababysitter.com.au” she added.
“It would be misleading for people in the Twitterverse if the @findababysitter name was registered to anyone but us, as owners of Findababysitter.com.au” she added.
What if the owner of Findababysitter.com want’s it later?
Bad form Twitter.
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Bad form, but why didn’t she register findababysitter.com.au at the same time she registered the handle?
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Doesn’t help her case that trading in twitter handles for money is a blatant breach of Twitter’s Ts&Cs.
And trademark or no, she was willing to give the twitter name to Fairfax (for compensation) so it’s obviously not THAT crucial to her business – whereas it adequately reflects the Fairfax website.
The only thing I see here is someone disappointed that they weren’t able to scam the rules and profit.
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If her active use of the name pre-dated their trade mark application then they can’t enforce anyway.
She should sue Twitter and get it back then take whatever $ Fairfax offer mid proceedings.
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At first it sounds like a dick move by Twitter. But then again, there are precedents with top level domain parking issues that Twitter is obviously keen to avoid repeating. I wonder how many other Twitter handles and domains Nolan has?
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If Fairfax had taken her legally trademarked username ‘@babysitterdirectory’ then I might have given a crap.
@Matthew then they will get relegated to @findababysitterAU or something else that smells of corporate twitter
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Twitter should really cash in on this one: “Getting trampelled on by Big Business? Here, have an underscore!”
Without the benefit of extensive (ok, any) research into Twitter trademark law, I would have thought that if Fairfax was so inclined, it could argue that the new underscored user name is so similar to its own that it’s an attempt to cash in on its brand.
Of course that would depend on someone from Fairfax Media getting out of bed thinking trademark litigation is a great idea.
Incidentally, what do Fairfax people think about when getting out of bed?
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Does Fairfax own the trademark “findababysitter” in Australia, in the USA, or both? Is the lesson here that if you own the trademark in either country or both countries that prior usage of the name doesn’t matter?
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“Where did all my sub-editors go?”
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What are this twitter everyones talkings of? how can i by one?
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@Mereweather – mostly autoplay
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Trademark for which country? So, if findababysitter dot com applies to Twitter will they be able claim it from Fairfax? (est. 2006 and trademark in UK)
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“Incidentally, what do Fairfax people think about when getting out of bed?”
My first thought is COFFEE
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Fairfax has a weak case for claiming it.
Ann has a weak case for retaining it.
Only the lawyers get rich from this.
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how has any of these parties actually been able to get into a discussion with Twitter over anything? I have a client who has tried to get a twitter name that someone has – which hasn’t been used for over 2yrs – and Twitter doesn’t respond to our request for assistance.
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This is ridiculous and shameful of Fairfax to even entertain this type of thing. I don’t know if it is legal or not, even if it is, it is not right on so many levels. You are also messing with this persons livelihood here with a registered name applicable to her business that is a generic term (common language). Unless the name is blatantly someone else’s IP (Eg. Coca-Cola) how can you be pulled up on trademark here? Would love for this to get some legal eagles involved and be posted on more here as this affects most clients in a big way.
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This is most entertaining for a company that’s really only recently discovered Twitter could be part of your brand extension, especially since some sections were prevented from signing up on there for some time. You may have noticed that only a couple of weeks ago, a bunch of section editors were suddenly signed up.
That said, trying to sell your handle: wrong.
Twitter yanking it: poor form.
Fairfax spruiking babysitters on Twitter: ROFL
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A few seconds on ATMOSS will find Fairfax registered Find A Babysitter as a trade mark on February 12, 2007.
So if Ann did launch the findababysitter.com.au site in 2008 as the article says then Fairfax had good grounds to make an infringement claim. I’m surprised she didn’t get a nastygram from their lawyers before she even registered the Twitter handle.
On a slightly different topic, is it just a select few of us who find “mumpreneur” to be an ugly word?
It strikes me as being another example of old rope being repainted and resold as part of an effort to push someone’s book or consulting business.
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Did someone call for a TM lawyer?
I agree that this looks bad all round, but from a legal perspective it seems really messy, and quite hard to make a definitive call as to who might have the best case.
The Find-A-Babysitter site was originally established by a mum from our Creche much longer ago than just 2008, but Fairfax’s purchase gives them the benefits of her prior use. That said, if Anne Nolan’s use pre-dates the Fairfax registration date, she has probably developed her own “prior use” rights.
On top of this is the fact that, as pointed out in another post, “Find A Babysitter” is a very generic, descriptive term, which resulted in Fairfax not trade marking that term, but the full domain name (with .com.au on the end) + the visual / decriptive elements, so it is actually a pretty crappy registration in terms of defensability against infringement.
But in this case I suspect the battlefield would unfortunately be deep pockets, rather than strength of legal case.
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