How safe is your Twitter name?

Here's our full interview with Morna Simpson of Girl Geek Scotland about her experiences having her Twitter name suddenly taken away from her. We're pleased to report the situation's now been resolved and Morna has been given her Twitter name back, at the request of the trademark holder, but it makes sober reading anyway...

Hi Morna, thanks for agreeing to speak to us. Can you start by telling us what your day job is and maybe a bit about your background?

I come from a design background but have always been inspired by technology and its potential to make the world a better place. Until recently I was a lecturer and researcher in Digital Media at a local university. I was co-investigator on the £1.39m TOTeM project, funded by the RCUK which has already launched its spin out product Talesofthings.com.

My work as founder of Girl Geek Scotland fitted well with university life. The people there not only understood issues surrounding diversity, but knew supporting women in technology was very much in their interest.

Universities really are wonderful places full of idealists and I guess that is why it suited me. It was a difficult decision to leave, but now I am footloose, fancy free and looking for a new challenge.

When did you first set up your Twitter account?

I can't remember the exact date that I set up the account. It was sometime between the first Girl Geek Scotland organisers meeting around October 2008 and the launch of our first Girl Geek Dinner in February 2009.

And what kind of stuff do you tweet about?

I mainly tweet about women and technology. I make announcements for Girl Geek Scotland (event announcements, video releases and enterprise workshops) *and* will retweet for Girl Geek Dinners whenever I am aware of them happening somewhere in the world. I will try to help publicise any organisation that promotes those issues and will try to help those working towards diversity and human rights issues in general.

However, @girlgeeks (my Twitter name) is also my personal Digital Identity. That means that I express my personal (sometimes political) point of view, and sometimes spend time chatting with my friends online.

So, we hear your Twitter username's recently been changed by Twitter. Firstly, can you tell us when that happened and how you first found out about it?

I received an email from Twitter on Mar-10 12:57 pm (PST).

They said "We have received a report from Girl Geeks Limited regarding your account, @girlgeeks. To resolve confusion with the trademark owner, we have added an underscore to your username, now @girlgeeks_, and have released the trademarked username to the trademark holders for their active use on Twitter."

There was no prior communication with me by either the (newly registered) trademark owner or Twitter themselves.

I was very surprised by Twitter's reaction. I felt their decision was very heavy handed, lacked due diligence and goes against the ethos of open communication that Twitter has as a company, and the Twitter community at large have become so closely associated with.

When the news broke on Twitter I was overwhelmed with support from the Twitter community.

Do you know when the company registered their trademark and what territories they registered it in?

My understanding of the situation is that the trademark in question was registered in October 2010 and it is open to dispute. Another company altogether owns http://girlgeeks.org, which significantly predates this registration, and so the new trademark infringes on theirs in an international market. Girl Geek Scotland is part of Girl Geek Dinners Worldwide, founded by Sarah Blow in 2005, a community that is frequently referred to as "Girl Geeks" as a short hand. This term is in common usage and associated, both online and off, with groups that support women in technology world over.

Also the trademark associated with Girl Geeks Ltd is in association with the logo combined with the text from Girl Geeks Ltd and not for the word "Girl Geeks" or "girlgeeks" independently of this, in the UK the trademark owner would need to put in a second application against just the name, also this is not an international trademark and is not under Scottish trademark regulation as such. Our community group did not infringe on this intentionally or otherwise.

I feel that as the registered trademark in question is "Girl Geeks Ltd" a more appropriate Twitter user name would be @GirlGeekLtd, which would help to iron out confusion between a registered company, my personal Twitter name and the numerous others who operate on behalf of Girl Geeks and Girl Geek Dinners around the world. No doubt many Twitter users feel their personal digital identities could be threatened by the Twitter trademark policy.

So, did Twitter give you a chance to explain your side of the story or did they just go ahead and change your username? Did they even give you any advanced warning or did they tell you after it had happened?

As I said before, I got no advance warning, just the email mentioned above.

Some people would say it's only a Twitter account - what's the big deal? Can you tell us how this has affected you?

Wow! Where do I begin...

My personal Twitter name was established around two years ago and now has a following of 4,500. I can demonstrate that my tweets have a reach of 26 countries worldwide. When Twitter changed my user name I was put in the position of losing a great deal of personal and business contacts whose first point of contact would often be through my twitter user-name. The work that I had done (unpaid and voluntarily) in support of the Girl Geek community world wide was in danger of being credited to an organisation that I am not associated with. The good work - which I am very proud of - would not be visible. The work that I have done could easily be confused with the work of this company.

Overnight contact books are out of date, overnight messages no longer go to you but some third party, overnight any archived Follow Friday tags #FF are out of date, overnight your on line reputation has gone. And worse, think how many resources you will need to update, business cards, LinkedIn, Skype and thats not to mention your presence in search engines. Trying to retrieve all these online and offline references to my twitter name would be a complete nightmare.

To give some specific examples:

Girl Geek Scotland is being profiled as a good practice example that tackles occupational segregation with a focus on labour market, Innovation and Technology and Entrepreneurship through Winnet8 an EU funded project (http://www.winnet8.eu/). As founder I presented on behalf of Girl Geek Scotland to EU delegates in Venice late last year, and then to Scottish delegates including the Minister of Enterprise and Tourism on International Womens Day. On both occasions I gave my Twitter name as a point of contact.

If those people search for "Girlgeeks Twitter" on Google my name "Morna Simpson" appears listed as the owner of the feed. However, they are no longer directed to my Twitter feed, but to an empty Twitter feed owned by Girl Geeks Ltd.

Imagine for a moment that I trademarked the name "StephenFry", "MarthaLaneFox" or "wonderlandblog" and requested that they relinquish their Twitter user-names for my use. Or imagine that I trademarked the name #Feb17th, which was the critical hashtag (means of searching through Twitter) used in the uprisings in the Arab Nations particularly Egypt. Or even if I simply sifted through Twitter to find numerous accounts of 8,000 or more followers and trademarked those and then used the names for my own benefit, whether social, political or for profit. The idea is entirely absurd.

How well do you feel Twitter have handled the situation?

I feel it was a bad decision by Twitter and that they need to review their trademark policy and due diligence process to protect personal user-names and support the rights of individuals.

Do you feel it's mainly the fault of the limited company or of Twitter?

The trademark owner has since apologised and I believe it to be a genuine error of judgement on her part that she sincerely regrets. I have no bad feeling towards her and believe her to be working towards very similar aims to myself. I am only disappointed that she did not pick up the phone to speak to me personally before contacting Twitter. However, I will continue to support her work as I have done in the past.

I was surprised to find that Twitter changed my user name without due diligence and without giving me an opportunity to clear up any potential confusion. I feel it is a very poorly thought out Policy for a company who have become so closely associated with the ethos of open communication and collaboration. I am sure that on reflection, they will recognise this themselves. I hope they will respond to my request to make changes to their policy and due diligence process to protect personal user names and support the rights of individuals.

Are you going to take the matter further? If so how?

I do not expect to have to take any legal action, but I have asked Twitter to take the opportunity to:

1. Reinstate me with my twitter name @girlgeeks (note: this has now been done at the request of the trademark holder)
2. Apologise for changing my user name without giving me the opportunity to clear up confusion
3. Clarify who filed the trademark report
4. Make changes to their trademark policy and due diligence process to protect personal user-names and support the rights of individuals

What advice would you give to other Twitter users about protecting themselves from this happening?

I would suggest to Twitter users that they need to be aware that digital media is changing the world far faster than international law can keep up. Twitter have found themselves to be at the centre of controversy time and again over the past year or so. There was the #Twittersubpeona, the #Twitterjoketrial, #weloveBaskers, not to mention almost every stage of the WikiLeaks scandal. Currently Twitter dominate the market in microblogging in much the same way that Fox News monopolises news broadcast in the USA. However, there are alternative microblogging services readers may want to consider if they find they are unhappy with the way Twitter operates.

Twitter users should lobby Twitter to support individual rights and to review their policies in a way which is more supportive of their users and the ethos of free speech and open communication that they have become so closely associated with. They should also lobby government and mainstream media towards this. I would also suggest that they are mindful of the use of their personal data online, which can often be sold to third parties of whom they know nothing.

Twitter and the Twitter community at large have the opportunity to lead the way in making the world a fairer and more equal place. Lets encourage them to do that.

Anything else you'd like to add?

Just that I should get my Twitter name @girlgeeks back soon. All is well that ends well... : )

Thanks again for your time, Morna!

Girl Geeks Scotland is part of the Girl Geek Dinners network. You can contact Girl Geeks Scotland on news@girlgeekscotland.co.uk or sponsor@girlgeekscotland.co.uk.

Legal blurb: Please don't sue us Twitter! It was nothing to do with us .. it was all the @girlgeeks' fault! Don't shoot the messenger.

On a more serious note. We're simply reporting the events as they're reported to us. We don't accept any liability etc. etc. .. you get the point.