14 DAY TRIAL // ONEOK Inc. has filed a legal complaint against Twitter in which it accuses the social network for allowing a user to register a username containing the ONEOK word, subject to copyright and trademark protection. This lawsuit was dropped after Twitter admins deleted the account in question.
ONEOK, a US-based natural gas distributor, has filed a complaint at the District Court in Tulsa citing copyright infringement from Twitter. The company was mad after some users registered three Twitter accounts containing the ONEOK brand name. The problem came from one of those accounts, which recently has tweeted messages that were easily mistakable as ONEOK news releases.
After emails from company officials haven't been answered by Twitter staff, the gas distributor went right ahead with its complaint and filed it at the court registrar. Not wanting to escalate this dispute, Twitter admins immediately deleted the account in question and, as a result, ONEOK Inc. dropped the lawsuit.
These developments come to show that, despite already having an account verification service available for notable media personalities and Government institutions, Twitter still won't verify a business account even if it could kill it. Well, we just hope that those paid-membership business accounts are coming soon, because after this incident maybe other companies will follow ONEOK's example and start hunting after their trademark name in account usernames.
In other Twitter-related business news, TechCrunch reported that the social network would start raising new money pretty soon, aiming for the $50 million figure, which will also place it over the $1 billion value at a future valuation.
Twitter has raised about $35 million or more only this year, and a total of $55 million in its lifetime. Rumors are circulating in the financial market that Insight Venture Partners will be the main investor in this fund raising round.