Wall Street Journal says Twitter Can Cause Uproar

So, for all those Twitterers, such as myself who is more of a watcher and reader than one who posts “Tweets,” how should we help our clients/organizations deal with fake Twitter profiles? One of my clients dealt with this and they traced it back to someone within their company…but not for long. The impersonator was immediately let go. Not surprising.

Excerpts from June 29, 2009, Wall Street Journal (and shared by fellow PRSA Dallas colleague Richard Grady):

 By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN

 Twitter users have caused an uproar by impersonating celebrities on the popular micro-blogging service. Businesses, too, are targets of fake Twitter profiles — sometimes from competitors.

Exxon Mobil Corp. has found at least two unauthorized Twitter accounts under variations of its name. Twitter … terminated one of the profiles last summer. An Exxon spokesman says the oil company is considering what to do about the second profile, which it discovered several weeks ago. The profiles didn’t appear to contain malicious content.

The incidents are reminiscent of “cybersquatting” in the early days of the Internet, when people registered Internet domains of well-known companies and sometimes demanded payments to relinquish them.

In a defensive move, AMR Corp.’s American Airlines in April “registered every possible Twitter name that could be associated with us,” a spokesman says. The move came after airline employees last summer found a rogue profile in the name AmericanAir, which was shut down four weeks later.

… While a 1999 law gave trademark owners the right to sue cybersquatters, it is unclear how the law would apply to false Twitter accounts. “It’s not covered by existing laws protecting against domain name abuse,” says Susan Weller, a trademark attorney in Washington, D.C., for Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo P.C.

… Twitter co-founder Biz Stone says the company hopes to introduce a verification service later this summer to confirm profiles of public officials, public agencies and other well-known individuals. But he says there are currently no plans to offer an authentication service for businesses because of the costs and time that would be required.

Twitter policy prohibits unauthorized use of trademarks, but Mr. Stone says the company has no system for identifying violators. He says the service is working to respond to complaints within 24 hours, instead of the current average of five days.