“Secondly, he saw an opportunity when most people did not, so he should totally benefit from it.”

That happened to my wife a couple of months ago; she was trying to use her laptop on the street to record a protest, and someone saw an opportunity where most people did not, and ran off carrying her laptop. I bet he benefited from that.

That someone “saw an opportunity when most people did not” doesn't really tell you anything about whether exploiting that opportunity is moral or immoral.

So Twitter making money by getting the Celtics their @ name is more worthy than letting a guy run fan information using that name? Sorry, but that doesn't make any sense.

The author did not present any evidence that Twitter made money on this. It's only his speculation based on his own valuation of the name.

Since when does Twitter make money anyway?

You fail at reading comprehension.

Feel free to actually say something constructive without being an asshole next time.

Did the guy violate any rules? Not unless you go by a strict definition of Twitter's TOS. Your original analogy makes no sense. The Celtics didn't have the name stolen from them (they never owned it in the first place) and the guy wasn't using it for a non-legitimate reason, so why should he not benefit from the common knowledge of the association of "Celtics" with the Boston Celtics basketball team?

I said, “That someone “saw an opportunity when most people did not” doesn't really tell you anything about whether exploiting that opportunity is moral or immoral.”. Your response was a complete non-sequitur, and furthermore it appeared to attribute to me a position including material facts that are probably false. In the comment to which I am replying, you have called me an “asshole.”

I appreciate your expressed concern for the constructiveness of the conversation. May I suggest that you try a different strategy if a constructive conversation is what you seek? Putting words in the mouths of other participants and name-calling may not be the most effective way to engage in a constructive conversation.

I was just pointing out that rokhayakebe's syllogism, “Secondly, he saw an opportunity when most people did not, so he should totally benefit from it,” depends on an absurd unstated premise. Whether this blogger who we’re talking about happens to be a robo-spamming scumbag or not isn’t really relevant to that.

And that is why you fail at reading comprehension.

First, you asserted that it was wrong for Party B (your wife) to suffer because Party A (a thief) took her laptop. It was unclear whether you were only trying to point out that opportunism isn't always moral, or if you were also making the allegation that what the OP had initially done in this case was immoral. (which it is now clear you were not) I was simply comparing the morality of Twitter in this case to the morality of the OP.

Second, the position I attributed to you was a natural extension of your argument, if you don't qualify such a statement as part of a discussion I'm going to assume you are applying your suggestion to the discussion as a whole. In this case you brought up that opportunism is not always moral, which is true, but you did not exclude the discussion at hand so I made the assumption that you were implying that the OPs stance was immoral as well.

Third, please tell me how you expected "you fail at reading comprehension" to lead to any sort of rational debate before you accuse me of the same. When you say such things without qualification don't be surprised if you get called an asshole, because under the circumstances its likely true.

You still fail at reading comprehension.

You were the one who complained about the discussion not being "constructive," not me. (In the same sentence where you called me an "asshole".) I was just pointing out that you weren't really behaving in a way that often leads to constructive discussion. Consider it a tip. No charge! Feel free to call me an "asshole" as often as you please, if that's what melts your butter. Or a "motherfucker" or "dickhead" if you like. It really doesn't matter to me. But it probably won't lead to constructive conversation!

I pretty much gave up hope of constructive discussion when you put words in my mouth, totally failed to understand what I wrote, and accused Twitter of taking a bribe. So I decided to make fun of you instead.

I guess you have the right to believe whatever lets you sleep well at night :)

Totally disagree... And I believe the law does as well, when it comes to domain names (the best precedent I can think of).

If I bought toyota.com, nissan.com, honda.com, etc when domain names first came available, that doesn't mean I have the rights to keep them unless I had legitimate interests in those domain names that didn't compete with the trademark holder (as was the case in the Nissan.com situation).

Certainly, a lot of people benefited from those early buys, but if they got greedy, they generally got sued (and lost). Even typosquatters have successfully been sued.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Trademarks_and_domain...

I've enjoyed some of Steve's writings in the past, but I think he's dead wrong here.

I don't understand the association of capitalism with greed, certainly people who had the foresight to understand that domains would be valuable at some point in the future (and put their money where their mouths were) should be compensated (at a reasonable price) for taking that risk no?

Taking the risk and grabbing something generic-but-powerful, like "business.com" or "porn.com" seems fine. Grabbing someone elses brand name for the purpose of squatting on it and then extorting the trademark owner just seems wrong.

The point is that the domains would have almost ZERO value if the business who has the trademark hadn't spent huge piles of money building the brand and the goodwill around it. In this guys case, he grabs @celtics and tosses up some basketball stats, and he's basically leeching off the brand. It's not dissimilar to setting up a Hamburger stand and calling it "McDonalds" with a stylized "M" logo.

In domain/twitter name case, there's no actual risk being taken. Twitter names are free. Domain names are cheap ($30/year at first). So in my mind, they should be compensated at a reasonable price for the risk they took... Let's say 30x return on whatever they put into it. :-)

Twitter-squatting is not the same as domain-squatting. It's more in line with MySpace which has also reserved the right to manage names as they see fit.

Steve's doing nothing more than assuming an opportunity and making an * of himself by complaining about it.

That's just it there was no opportunity and Twitter is better off preventing people from trying exploit others by being the first to grab interesting names.

In this case, it's quite clear that Steve saw an opportunity to make money where there wasn't one. His attempt to squat on these "quality" names that were "front row seats" was based on the ridiculous idea that a Twitter name is worth money. He was wrong.