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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowCompanies with a Facebook presence may now be vulnerable to so-called cybersquatters if they failed to register a new user name as part of a policy introduced by the popular networking site.
Facebook on Saturday began allowing users to select personalized, easy-to-remember Web addresses that incorporate their own names, nicknames or trademarks. The new usernames replace long and often convoluted URLs that contained several letters and numbers that make it difficult for people to find and befriend one another.
For example, ABC Corp.’s user name might have resembled something like this: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php? id==000000000/abccorp/000000000.
Under the new policy it would be a much simpler http://facebook.com/abccorp.
But companies that didn’t take advantage of the offer may be at risk from cybersquatters who registered user names containing the trademarks of others in an attempt to hold the Web address for ransom.
Since Saturday, Facebook already has closed the process in which companies could register their trademarks. But it does provide a link to a form businesses can submit if they think a user name infringes upon their intellectual property rights.
Tom Walsh, chairman of the intellectual property group at Indianapolis-based law firm Ice Miller LLP, said Facebook didn’t provide enough warning for companies to register their trademarks.
“Brand owners were given about four days to register their trademarks before the floodgates were opened,” he said. “Those companies that were paying attention gained the protection.”
Walsh likened the situation to what has occurred with the Internet, particularly earlier in the decade. Cybersquatters typically register a Web address with the intent of profiting from it by selling the domain name at a huge markup to a business.
“Facebook has permitted the same thing to happen,” Walsh said. “It’s kind of like a land grab.”
Facebook said it will block a username if it determines it is being used without the authorization of the trademark holder.
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