Similar to our efforts on Twitter to claim the www.twitter.com/startupnation account name, we have now achieved something similar for www.facebook.com/startupnation.
As I wrote a while ago here in my blog about the Twitter squatter who was trying to extort StartupNation, there are definitely systems in place at the social media companies that support ethical companies and certainly intellectual property rights of individuals and companies. Twitter worked on our behalf to wrestle away the /startupnation account for us given that it was a registered trademark owned by our business and was obviously strategic to us as well as a source of confusion in the marketplace under the squatter’s control. They quickly moved the account into our control.
Now through the encouragement of Daliah Saper of Saper Law, we’ve done the same thing at Facebook. In less than 24 hours, by following their simple, clear instructions, we were able to pull www.facebook.com/startupnation away from the squatter and now have that username as our own, appropriately so.
Here’s the simple, step-by-step process we followed in case you have a squatter issue and/or trademark issue as it relates to a Facebook username:
- Go to the bottom of any Facebook page. Click on the link called “Terms.”
For your convenience, that link is here. - Scroll down to #5, “Protecting Other People’s Rights,” and select “How to Report Claims of Intellectual Property Infringement”.
For your convenience that link is here. - For copyright infringement, scroll down to “How to report claims of copyright infringement by users” and select the link.
For your convenience, that link is here. - For trademark (or other intellectual property concerns), which was what applied to our situation given our registered trademark for StartupNation that the squatter was unethically using for their benefit, scroll down to “How to report other claims of intellectual property infringement by users” and select the link.
For your convenience, that link is here.
We are always looking out for you and hope that you find similar success and satisfaction in the process, which is set up and well enforced by Facebook.
We hope that you can soon make your own blog entry titled, “Me 1, Facebook Squatter 0”!
Rich
