Bots are crawling new domain registrations and namesquatting Twitter handles

http://rossduggan.ie/blog/technology/bots-are-crawling-new-domain-registrations-and-namesquatting-twitter-handles/

by duggan • 15 years ago

66 36 15 years ago

rossduggan.ie

Hisoka• 15 years ago

Thanks for reminding me to register a Twitter handle for my new site.. Glad noone squatted it.

blatherard• 15 years ago

According to a commenter on the linked page, you can file an impersonation report and will likely get it resolved.

duggan3• 15 years ago

Spotted that, fingers crossed!

Still worth being aware of if your case isn't quite open-and-shut, or you're planning a quick launch. I feel quite an eejit for letting it happen.

icebraining• 15 years ago

Am I the only one slightly worried about this? I mean, they aren't really impersonating anyone, since the Twitter handle was created before the website was even online.

First come, first served may suck sometimes, but at least it's a clear, well-defined and fair way of allocating handles.

Before registering your personal handle, have you checked if someone had the domain?

duggan3• 15 years ago

I agree in principle, but I think there's scope for leeway (at least I hope there is in this case!).

Case-by-case can be painful/time-consuming - I know, it's baked into the ethos of the company I work for - but it has its rewards.

People have more time for a company that has more time for them.

moe• 15 years ago

I tried to have a twitter handle released recently and no, they don't process individual requests anymore unless you have a trademark or other legal title.

glimcat• 15 years ago

Is it just me that always registers Twitter at the same time as the domain?

user-id• 15 years ago

/me squats @glimcat

highace• 15 years ago

As well as Twitter are there any other services that should be signed up for ASAP to avoid problems like this? Facebook, Youtube, Tumblr?

corin_2• 15 years ago

My (perhaps inaccurate) feeling is that it is most important for Twitter. In my experience most people (except perhaps those both very familiar with the website and pretty techy) are unlikely to try and go directly to a URL for most services based on a name, e.g. typing in www.facebook.com/ycombinator, or whatever the youtube/tumblr/etc equivilents are. Whereas for twitter, if you think you know the name, or even if you just think you have a good guess, lots of people will type it right into the address bar.

Maybe this is because Twitter, right from launch, had a very clear link between "if this is their username, it's also their display name, and also their URL", whereas other services, while they might have done the same thing (often as a post-launch change), it was sold more as a "this makes links look nicer" rather than as a "go straight to an account easily" feature.

olefoo2• 15 years ago

This shows the importance of good URL design upfront. Twitter did an amazing job of having well defined REST-ful URLs from the beginning and it was one of the factors responsible for their early success. The more rational, guessable and legible your URL's the easier it is for people to use your web service.

Joakal• 15 years ago

Domain names of course! And get a trademark or several. The latter has more leeway to the point of people blogging about losing their handlers on the online platforms due to trademark rules or something.

Seek your own legal advice with Trademarks. The good advice should include handling 'typo' handlers possibly impersonating your service. eg YCOMBlNATOR.com

paulca• 15 years ago

Registered a new domain today that I'd like the Twitter name for ... good heads up Ross, thanks!

gyardley• 15 years ago

What a great opportunity for a registrar to differentiate themselves! They could tell you if your handle is available on popular social media services before you register your domain, and then help you sign up for your handle simultaneously with your registration.

slouch• 15 years ago

Godaddy already tells me to get twitter when I buy a domain.

mtogo2• 15 years ago

The downside there is you have to use godaddy.

riffic• 15 years ago

Twitter's namespace problem is inherent to a single party controlling a centralized service.

If you want to truly own and control your own namespace, you should support services that are distributed, like the rest of the Internet.

cletus• 15 years ago

I haven't seen anyone ask the obvious question: just how many of Twitter's ~175 million accounts [1] are simply bots for this and other reasons?

I haven't used my Twitter handle in the better part of a year (I tried it; sorry but for me it's just a glorified link aggregator and not a particularly interesting one at that) but somehow I still get people following me.

Number of users for a site like Twitter is no doubt an important metric. It probably comes up in funding rounds. Those funding rounds will probably have goals/targets for Twitter to reach. Twitter has, to my knowledge, only ever stated the number of accounts, rather than the 7 or 30 day actives.

This all begs the question: does Twitter have a vested interest in inflating their own numbers such that they like bot auto-registration and, well, anything that increases the account total?

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-how-many-use...

retube• 15 years ago

> Twitter has, to my knowledge, only ever stated the number of accounts, rather than the 7 or 30 day actives.

I can't believe a VC sticking $100m into a social network like twitter doesn't demand very detailed breakdowns on user metrics.

mcpherrinm• 15 years ago

What Twitter tells a VC with millions of dollars is quite likely different from what they tell the general public for issues like this.

pyre• 15 years ago

s/begs the question/raises the question/g

note: this is only an attempt to be informative, not sarcastic or a smart ass.

DomainNoob• 15 years ago

I'd like to see a HN discussion of what people think Twitter should do about all the unused Twitter handles or those that were obviously abandoned after a few tweets back in 2009. -Should Twitter charge a nominal fee, say $1 a year for an account? -Should a domain name 'trump' an unused Twitter handle, ie. a way for domain owners to acquire unused Twitter handles?

duggan3• 15 years ago

Just to bring some resolution to this, I received a response from Twitter today and, as I suspected, the namesquatting policy does not apply in my situation.

Disappointing (since I have a small group of useless domains now, .com, .net and .org) but a useful lesson.

Bots are crawling new domain registrations and namesquatting Twitter handles

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