Facebook's policies on usernames state that "Facebook username should have a clear connection to one's identity." But it's not been entirely clear how that would be enforced. Now we have an example; one user wrote in to tell us Facebook has revoked his "BMWUSA" username, which he claims he picked because he loves the German automaker's luxury cars.

"Now,] I am forced to pick a username that is left over after millions have already picked their names."

Well, sure, but our sympathy is limited: BMWUSA sounds an awful lot like a username intended for sale; we wonder if our tipster didn't hold out hope for a payday when the care company decided it wanted to get ahold of "facebook.com/bmwusa". When Facebook opened the doors to new usernames, it prompted a land-grab not unlike the early rush for dot-com domains. BMWUSA marks an early showdown in this new namespace between corporations and purported domain squatters.

Even if the username was selected in earnest, Facebook's response was predictable. Facebook is not an open system, like the internet; it's a privately held, often censorious social network.

Other apparent Facesquatters, beware: In its notice below, shown to our tipster, Facebook writes, "If you see other people with usernames hat do not accurately represent their real names, it is only because they have not yet been removed for misuse." We've called and emailed the Facebook press team to ask if a crackdown is imminent and are waiting to hear back.

(Top pic by wolfwhite99 on Flickr)

Boing Boing noticed the warning (and groused that CNN had registered boingboing.tv a couple of years ago). But it turns out that the loudmouthed Parsons (full disclosure: I'm a weekly guest on his GoDaddy Radio show) is not the first to beat this Tuvalu-is-sinking drum. USA Today writer Kevin Maney looked into the issue some years ago: If the Pacific island sinks beneath the waves due to global warming, your .tv domains will still be safe. And knowing Parsons, he'll still be complaining about it.

(Photo by Getty Images)

For months, Culligan has been digging into the mystery of why Maggie Williams, a longtime Clinton staffer who served as Hillary Clinton's campaign manager and now works for her as a Secretary of State recruiter, used Clinton's taxpayer-funded office to receive correspondence about stock options she received from Delta Financial, a subprime lender.

It's the most obscure imaginable charge. What, does Culligan think Clinton ripped off taxpayers by having a government-paid clerk drop the letter off at Williams's desk? It's hardly a scandal compared to the $1 million-a-year bill the government has paid since 2001 to fund Clinton's post-presidential operation.

It would have been a simple thing for the Clinton camp to brush off the charge as irrelevant. But the move to reclaim Clinton's domain names suggests that the charge has stung nonetheless. What is it about Williams's mailing address that has Clinton's lawyers so worried now — as opposed to any point in the past decade, during which time Culligan pointed presidentbillclinton.com, williamjclinton.com, and williamclinton.com as a gag to the Republican National Committee's website?

(Photo by AP)

Whitman is widely talked about as a Republican candidate for California's governorship in 2010. But she hasn't even been able to win a set of domain names related to a potential campaign, like whitman2010.com. A Southern California man, Thomas Hall, registered that URL and four others. Whitman's legal team has spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to get them back. But an arbitrator at the World Intellectual Property Organization, which rules on such matters, has denied her complaint. Why?

Because Whitman, the ruling argues, hasn't established herself as a brand in the marketplace. This despite appearing on the cover of Fortune and speaking to thousands at eBay seller conferences. Her microfame, in isolated little worlds like Silicon Valley and the online-auction universe, hasn't carried over — at least not enough to impress impartial bureaucrats a world away.

Should Whitman forget about politics, based on this domain-name defeat? Yes, but that's not the only reason. She hopes to trade on her reputation in business, but that's been thoroughly tarnished by eBay's stagnation in the latter years of her reign. Spending $2.6 billion on Skype, and then writing most of it off, was thoroughly boneheaded; meanwhile, she worried about Google but failed to see the threat from a resurgent Amazon.com.

Hey, we hear Yahoo's looking for a CEO! A fixer-upper might be just what Whitman needs, since her good name is in need of repairs, too. Maybe then she'll be able to sell it on a ballot.

Update: Henry Gomez, a retired eBay executive who's now working with Whitman as her personal spokesman, called to say Whitman plans to sue Hall under U.S. cybersquatting laws. (There's no appeal available for the WIPO ruling.) I chatted with Gomez, who seemed to know quite a bit about California politics and electoral rules. How, I asked, did he come across this knowledge? And why is Whitman so concerned about reclaiming these domains, when she's not even offically running for governor? "What can I say?" said Gomez. "We're retired. We're bored."

Cameron and his twin brother Tyler famously sued Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, claiming he copied the code for his site from ConnectU, a similar social network they asked him to help code while they were all students at Harvard. Facebook and ConnectU settled the lawsuit earlier this year. One wonders if Facebook's lawyers forgot to ask for the UK domain name.

Google has an advertising service, AdSense for Domains, specifically designed for these domain-name profiteers. But the company's flacks deny that such sites make money for the search engine. Maybe they should give it a try on the 9,984 domain names they do own?

Since the debate, Texas Joe's website has reportedly garnered hundreds of thousands of pageviews, 300 requests for T-shirts, thousands of phone calls, and even a $800,000 offer for the domain name itself. Joe should get in touch with Julia Allison right now to extend the snooze button on his 15 minutes, but at least I know who I'm going to dress up as for Halloween.

FairWinds based its analysis on 1,058 domain names for companies on the Global 500 and Fortune 500 lists. Of the companies surveyed, 35% own the domain name for their brand followed by the word "sucks." They include Wal-Mart Stores, Coca-Cola, Toys"R"Us, Target and Whole Foods Market, according to FairWinds. Some 45% of these domains have yet to be registered by anyone. The study found that the majority of companies that do own these domain names publish no content on them.

Some have been much more aggressive than others. Xerox, for example, has bought or registered about 20 unflattering domain names, including xeroxstinks.com, xeroxcorporationsucks.com and ihatexerox.net. But other companies, such as Dell, have taken a more hands-off approach. DellisEvil.com, MyDellSux.com and IHateDell.info are for sale, but the computer maker says it has no interest in buying them.

• cul, n. As noted, French for bottom. Porny philosopher Georges Bataille was a fan.
• cull, n. To choose, select, or pick. Fitting, but, no.
• cuill, n. The company's former name, an old spelling left on the company's own launch press release Sunday
• cool, n. How we're supposed to pronounce it. The parked domain features one of the most charmingly random collection of search terms.
• culi.com, n. Benvenuti! from this Italian porn site.

(Photo via Kiki de Montparnasse)

Wonder who bought twitter.me. We were not on the ball.

If the guy who bought Twitter.me doesn't get some cash from the deal, Twitter's lawyers will, as they pursue a costly, bureaucratic trademark complaint. Either way, looks like some of that $15 million round of venture capital just disappeared from the stash. Which serves as a friendly reminder to wantrepreneurs: Chase the squatters away from your brand, lest they take up residence and demand walking-away money.

In an open letter, Hesse even quotes a schadenfreude-laced passage from Proverbs:

I will mock you when calamity overtakes you - when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you.

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