How to Reclaim That Twitter Username You’ve Always Wanted from Inactive or Registered Twitter Accounts
Posted by on June 2nd, 2010 View Comments
Posted in Miscellaneous |
As of late, the Twitter community has been witnessing an emerging battle for registering accounts in the names of notable people and companies and changing account names to the ones they like. It has become an increasing trend that Twitter users have been scrambling for inactive username requests. There are more and more consumers and businesses that are leaning to microblogging as a way to communicate ideas and promotions. With the rise of users wanting to bring their identity or brands in Twitter, there’s also a rise in demand of users who want to reclaim registered, inactive or unused Twitter accounts that carry the usernames they need.
Inactive Account Conditions
Twitter has its own Inactive Accounts Policy that states: “An account is considered inactive if it hasn’t been logged into or updated in over nine months. Inactive accounts may be automatically removed from Twitter. To keep your account active, be sure to log in and post an update within nine months of your last update. Accounts that have no followers, followings, or updates may be considered squatting accounts and immediately removed from circulation…”
Inactive accounts are legitimate accounts that are not used for a long period of time. However, there are accounts that Twitter released due to Terms of Service violations, such as brand and trademark complaints, breach of privacy, copyright violations, harassment, impersonation, and name squatting.
It would help if you check the profile page of the account you are eyeing. The page will show its last updates, and if nine months have passed since its last update, the Twitter account is considered inactive and may become available anytime soon.
No Individual Request
At the moment, there is no direct way to request Twitter to release or give you an inactive username on an individual basis unless it commits Terms of Service violations. Waiting for the original user to release the account would surely be of no help. However, there are alternative means you can proactively use to reclaim that username you’ve always wanted, albeit degrees of success may vary.
- Contact the User Through an @reply in Twitter Follow the user of the account you are eyeing and send the person a message using @reply. The user will see your reply if they enable the “notification of new follows” option. There’s a high chance to get in touch with the user through @reply since this is option is default.
- Look for the User’s Bio You can opt to check for the user’s information for some inactive accounts that have a user bio. If the person has contact information or web site in their account, inquire about their username through those channels.
- Ask Your Followers You can also ask anyone from your Twitter followers who owns the account. There’s a chance that at least one of your contacts knows the user, especially if the user was once active before turning inactive. Also, ask your contacts to retweet your request.
- Look for Domains on the Web There are business web site owners or bloggers that use their URL as their username in Twitter. Take the chance to look up for the URL username.com (with “username” being the Twitter username you are searching for) and try to contact the user through the site.
- Send Request via E-mail to Username@twitter.com Just recently, with inactive username requests on the rise, Twitter made some improvements to the process of reclaiming inactive Twitter accounts. Anyone can now send a request to acquire a username via email to username@twitter.com. In your request, you need to put the relevant information needed to process it, including the username you want, your existing username — if you have one, and whether you want to change the username or start a new account with the username you are requesting. You will receive a confirmation email from Twitter if your username has been changed. Take note that Twitter will only change your username at the time of responding to the request so that your desired username won’t be taken by other users. The process may take three to five days to complete.
- If all Else Fails, Seek Legal Counsel If the aforementioned methods don’t work for some reason and you still fail to secure the Twitter username you want, you can consult with a legal counsel about claiming the username.
