14 DAY TRIAL // Having a name similar, or identical in this case, to that of a known brand can prove to be quite a disadvantage when the company behind the brand decides it has the right to any instance of the name online. As Facebook user Harman Bajwa found out, the 'little guy' usually doesn't get a say in the matter as his vanity URL on the social network, /harman, was revoked last week apparently after a complaint by Harman International. What's more, it looked like Facebook did so for profit, selling the URL to the company. The dispute was settled after it became public and the man got his name back, but others may not be so lucky.
Internet 'squatters' can be a real problem for companies and organizations trying to establish an online presence. Knowing the potential value of a domain name linked to a well-known brand, some people set out to profit from it by registering it for themselves. This has become less of a problem in recent years as the domains are usually returned to their rightful owners without too much of a hassle in most cases, but the 'squatters' have now moved to social media registering Facebook vanity URLs or Twitter names in hopes of profit.
As such, Facebook reserves the right to revoke any custom username to protect companies from these problems. In this particular case though, Facebook clearly abused its right, as TechCrunch initially reported. Last week, Harman received a notice that his username had been revoked due to a policy violation. This was clearly a mistake, as his use of /harman was well within the boundaries of Facebook's ToS.
But companies make mistakes and one with 350 million users could be forgiven for it if it weren't for a very interesting email Harman Bajwa received coming from a Harman International representative offering to 'buy' the username from him and also informing him that the company filed a complaint with Facebook as well. Selling the vanity URL is against Facebook ToS as well, but this became moot after the username was revoked.
After the initial report, Facebook apparently realized the mistake restoring Harman's username and offering an apology. "We made a mistake in this instance and are in the process of returning the username to Mr. Bajwa. To be clear, the move was not driven by monetary reasons, rather trademark protection... Once we understood the nature of our error, we moved quickly to resolve it. We want to apologize to Mr. Bajwa for being overzealous in our efforts and regret the disruption to his account," Facebook told TechCrunch.
The problem has now been solved and it may very well be that Facebook simply made a mistake in this case. There is one lingering question though, if the case hadn't been made public, would Facebook have realized its mistake and corrected it? We won't know the answer to that question, but it does raise some concerns over the kind of power the social network now has.