Facebook Adds Trade Mark Protection To Vanity URL Plan

MacKenzie said that the practice of registering someone's trade mark as a Facebook name is analogous to cybersquatting on web domain names.

"This is the same as if someone registers any domain name with another company's trade mark in it. In the UK there is case law deciding that just holding the domain can amount to unlawful conduct, and can be stopped," said MacKenzie.

Facebook has taken other steps to combat opportunistic name-squatting. It will not allow anyone who registers a profile after it announced the name feature to apply for a name in the first place.

"Eligibility is limited to anyone who joined Facebook before usernames were publicly announced," it said. "This decision was made to prevent people from creating new accounts just to take advantage of reserving a username."

It is also restricting people's ability to pass a username on, which will also help to stop trade in desirable names.

"Once you have claimed a username by clicking the "Set Username" button, it is not possible to edit it, or to transfer your username to a different account on Facebook. Additionally, when an account is removed from the site, its username will not be made available," it said.

There is no fee for submitting a trade mark to Facebook's pre-registration process.

Editor's note, 12/06/2009: This article initially suggested that Facebook allowed users to register domain names. As an eagle-eyed reader pointed out, that is inaccurate: it only allows them to register URLs. The domain name is still facebook.com. Apologies for the error.