Meta given 30 days to change the name Threads after company trademarked it 11 years ago
Published
| Last updated
.png)
Featured Image Credit: Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images. Chesnot/Getty Images
Threads Software Limited is threatening legal action over Mark Zuckerberg's Threads and has given the platform 30 days to change its name.
Threads Software Limited's lawyers have contacted the social media platform and will seek an injunction from the courts if the company keeps using its trademarked name.
The small UK company is a communication dashboard that captures, transcribes, and organizes a company's digital messages, emails, and calls into one database.
The name was trademarked back in 2012.
John Yardley, the managing director of Threads Software Limited, said the business 'faces a serious threat from one of the largest technology companies in the world', as per Business Insider.
Before the platform launched, Zuckerberg made four offers to purchase the domain 'threads.app'; however, Threads Software Limited repeatedly declined.
"From April 2023, Meta’s lawyers made four offers to purchase the domain ‘threads.app’ from Threads Software Ltd. Every offer was declined," Threads Software Limited said in a press release.
"It was made clear to Meta’s Instagram that the domain was not for sale. In July 2023, Meta’s Instagram announced its ‘threads’ social media platform and removed Threads Software Limited from its Facebook platform."
Threads was launched in July this year and quickly became one of the fastest-growing apps.
It quickly amassed 100 million followers in less than a week of launching on July 5.
Described as the 'Twitter Killer', Threads shares many similarities with Twitter, allowing users to post, share, like and follow other users, with parent company Meta explaining that the app aims to 'take what Instagram does best and expand that to text'.
Twitter users were quickly jumping ship to join the new app.
According to data from online tracker SimilarWeb, Twitter's traffic dropped by five per cent within the first two days of Threads going live, compared to the same two days in the previous week.
Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, also noted that Twitter traffic ‘was tanking’ while sharing a graph showing volume requests for Twitter falling gradually.
Twitter traffic tanking. https://t.co/KSIXqNsu40 pic.twitter.com/mLlbuXVR6r
— Matthew Prince 🌥 (@eastdakota) July 9, 2023
And just to rub salt in that wound, The Guardian reported that Zuckerberg wants his new app to practice ‘kindness’.
“The goal is to keep it friendly as it expands. I think it’s possible and will ultimately be the key to its success,” he said, as per the outlet.
“That’s one reason why Twitter never succeeded as much as I think it should have, and we want to do it differently.”
Topics: Technology, News, Mark Zuckerberg, Threads
