Slashdot Mirror
YouTube Algorithm Can Decide Your Channel URL Now Belongs To Someone Else
An anonymous reader writes: In 2005, blogger Matthew Lush registered "Lush" as his account on the then-nascent YouTube service, receiving www.youtube.com/lush as the URL for his channel. He went on to use this address on his marketing materials and merchandise. Now, YouTube has taken the URL and reassigned it to the Lush cosmetics brand. Google states that an algorithm determined the URL should belong to the cosmetics firm rather than its current owner, and insists that it is not possible to reverse the unrequested change. Although Lush cosmetics has the option of changing away from their newly-received URL and thereby freeing it up for Mr. Lush's use, they state that they have not decided whether they will. Google has offered to pay for some of Mr. Lush's marketing expenses as compensation.
In a recent Ask Slashdot, the person asking the question was ridiculed by many for relying on his free ISP email account instead of his own domain hosted with a 3rd party provider to allow for portability. I think a similar argument applies here.
Why doesn't Mr. Lush have his own domain/website instead of relying on Google/YouTube to be his direct URL? Just like your ISP provided email account, it may be your account to use, but you don't own it. It's property of the ISP and is subject to their whim in use.
Yeah it sucks that something that was "his" was taken away what appears to be arbitrarily due to some algorithm. But if he is reliant on that URL perhaps he should use something that he has better control and full ownership of.
But there is no justifiable reason why Google should do crap like this.
Lush isn't a sufficiently unique or trademarked term that there could only be one entity using the word Lush. It's not like it was "Lush Cosmetics" and he was stepping on their trademark.
And since trademarks are only valid in your area of business, there is NO legal justification for saying it's not his anymore.
He's been using it for a decade by the looks of it, so there is no way you can claim he's a late comer or cybersquatting.
Basically this is a bullshit policy, badly implemented by Google/YouTube, which basically says "we're going to arbitrarily decide that the branding you have worked on for years is no longer your own because we say so".
So, take your pick, evil, incompetent, or just plain old assholes -- possibly all three. But Google is the ones doing stupid things here.
This is kind of like Slashdot saying "we've decided the account name cdrudge should belong to someone else now" -- because it makes no sense whatsoever to take it away from someone who has been using it for so long.
This is just random garbage by random algorithms which isn't based on a damned thing than the arbitrary code Google has decided is the arbiter of these things.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
My wife is addicted to the damned stuff.
Lush is a cosmetics company that positions itself as the uber-hippie, swears itself against animal testing and such, and promotes pretty much every costmetics-related left-leaning cause you can imagine...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
That they are.
They're an upmarket / prestigious cosmetics manufacturer started here in the UK. If you walk past a lush store you can smell it a mile away, they're known for extremely nice / strong smelling, things.
My other half loves them.
- Dan
But it's naive in the extreme to believe that some kind of informal system of first come, first served meets squatter's rights would prevail when the players in question are large commercial entities.
The Internet as we knew it 15 years ago (or more..) is dead, as is the benevolent giant of Google. It's not run by geeks for geeks under some informal geek code of honor anymore. It's a commercial marketplace run by corporations for a profit.
And anyone with a clue and any exposure to Google would have to understand that their services and systems change as they see fit. If you rely on Google for anything, you'd better be, as the MBAs say, nimble and able to pivot when they change their minds. Their services come and go. Beta, labs, products, whatever, if it's not making ad revenue it's on life support and will disappear whenever they feel like it.
How did you reach that conclusion? Genuinely curious.
Google Fight: "Lush band" vs. "Lush Cosmetics"
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