JP Morgan Targets Twitter Activist and Subsequently Takes His Handle

In one of the more bizarre stories I have seen in a while, Dallas-based graphic designer Chase Giunta was forced to give up a Twitter handle he had been using for years after JP Morgan complained. He had been using the handle to retweet criticisms of the TBTF bank, and after he refused to sell the handle for what he claims was a $20,000 offer, the bank simply convinced Twitter to push him out. Amazingly, Jaime Dimon didn’t even have to threaten martial law to get his way this time.

This looks like another case of Goliath stomping on David. It’d be one thing if this person’s name wasn’t Chase, but it is, and so why doesn’t a human being have just as much if not more of a right to use that handle as a corporate entity?

Here’s a screen shot of Chase’s Twitter account from late August. You be the judge, seems clear to me he wasn’t trying to fool anyone that he was actually associated with the bank.

Screen Shot 2013-09-09 at 9.55.05 PM

More from the New York Post:

Twitter yanked the handle @Chase from Chase Giunta, who had been aggressively re-tweeting other people’s criticisms of the nation’s biggest bank.

On Thursday, JPMorgan, which had been using the clunkier @ChaseNews, immediately snapped up the @Chase handle.

A source said that JPMorgan had been following @Chase for about a year and filed a complaint alleging trademark infringement in recent weeks.

In an interview with The Post, Giunta said an anonymous broker offered him as much as $20,000 to relinquish the @Chase handle, which he refused, citing Twitter’s policy forbidding selling user names.

Pathetic.

Full article here.

In Liberty,
Mike

Follow me on Twitter!

Like this post?
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G


Follow me on Twitter.

1 thought on “JP Morgan Targets Twitter Activist and Subsequently Takes His Handle”

Leave a Reply