Facebook tells brands to get in touch to protect trademarks

by Andrew McCormick, revolutionmagazine.com 10-Jun-09, 09:40

LONDON - Brands looking to ensure their trademarked names are protected on Facebook have to register their interest with the social network.

Facebook will from this Friday launch 'vanity URLs', where brands will be able to claim named URLs, for example facebook.com/adidas, where previously they were anonymous.

Facebook users and brands alike will be invited to create such URLS from this Friday and the social network has warned that names will be handed out on a first come first serve basis.

Brands looking to register names have been urged to contact Facebook as soon as possible as they face a battle to avoid brand hi-jacking.

Facebook, Twitter and other social networks have been targeted by people looking to pose as celebrity personallities or takeover brands names, thereby causing disruption and potentially damaging messages to be spread.

The trend is the latest version of cyber squatting, the practice of rogue traders registering a domain names for companies with which they have no affiliation.

Twitter is currently facing a lawsuit from a disgruntled customer, the coach of baseball team St Louis Cardinals, who is claiming damages from the result of a fake Twitter account set up in his name.