On Saturday, June 13, at 12:01 a.m. (EDT), Facebook, the venerable social networking site, started allowing users to create personalized usernames, otherwise known as “vanity URLs”.  Facebook has been announcing this feature for the last week or so, stating that it will make it easier for people to find users on the site.  Before, the URL for a user might read “www.facebook.com/id=23427602734″ but now can be personalized to read “www.facebook.com/mwbower.”  Twitter and YouTube have been offering this feature for some time.

As has been the case over at Twitter and YouTube, vanity URLs can cause problems for trademark owners when users “personalize” their URLs with famous brands (e.g., “facebook.com/[brand name here]“).  Some have suggested that this use of a trademark may not be actionable under federal law, since the use is not “in commerce” as required under the Lanham Act.

Facebook has, however, created some safeguards for trademark owners.  Prior to June 13, trademark owners could have enrolled their trademarks with Facebook to block users from submitting those trademarks as a personalized URL.  Now that username registration is open, trademark owners may still protect their rights by using Facebook’s existing infringement reporting process.  Facebook also reserves the right to reclaim any vanity URL for any reason.

If you are a trademark owner and missed your opportunity to block use of your brand as a URL, it may not be too late to register the URL yourself (new users may do so starting on Sunday, June 28).  Otherwise, you can still play defense by using Facebook’s IP infringement claims process here.

–Matt