Tumblr "Disappears" Microsoft's Danah Boyd(zephoria.org)
zephoria.org
Tumblr "Disappears" Microsoft's Danah Boyd
http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/04/27/tumblr-disappeared-me.html
26 comments
I've been mired in the vagaries of trademark law for a few weeks now, and based on my limited knowledge, there is no legal reason that a company with the trademark Zephoria would be able to prevent her from also using that name, if she were able to show that she had used it since 1998.
Part of obtaining a trademark is doing due diligence and finding out how the name is being used in public. That includes use that isn't trademarked, but is publicly visible.
This is a different matter, since it's about a username on a private service, but the principle still holds. Danah has no legal recourse in this instance, but it does show that Tumblr is acting hastily and, in my view, improperly, by just yanking her account away from her without notice, appeal, or recourse.
Part of obtaining a trademark is doing due diligence and finding out how the name is being used in public. That includes use that isn't trademarked, but is publicly visible.
This is a different matter, since it's about a username on a private service, but the principle still holds. Danah has no legal recourse in this instance, but it does show that Tumblr is acting hastily and, in my view, improperly, by just yanking her account away from her without notice, appeal, or recourse.
Username and public URL. That's probably why Zephoria went after it so aggressively.
Also, isn't trademark restricted to an "area"? I would think it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibilities for two companies to want the same username with trademark claims to back both.
Yes, but then it'd be a deliberation between two holders rather than one holder and a non-holder.
I'm surprised there aren't many famous 'double' trademarks. The only one that springs to mind is Jif, the lemon juice, and Jif, the kitchen cleaner which were both household names in the UK. The kitchen cleaner renamed to Cif as part of a global brand realignment, though.
I'm surprised there aren't many famous 'double' trademarks. The only one that springs to mind is Jif, the lemon juice, and Jif, the kitchen cleaner which were both household names in the UK. The kitchen cleaner renamed to Cif as part of a global brand realignment, though.
Two quick examples of double trademarks:
Apple Records (Beatles) and Apple (Steve Jobs). They started with an agreement to stay clear of the others turf, but then Apple Computing got into music. I think they went to court before working something out.
WWF (World Wrestling Federation vs World Wildlife Fund). They went to court and the wrestling became WWE.
Apple Records (Beatles) and Apple (Steve Jobs). They started with an agreement to stay clear of the others turf, but then Apple Computing got into music. I think they went to court before working something out.
WWF (World Wrestling Federation vs World Wildlife Fund). They went to court and the wrestling became WWE.
Good call, sir! I'm expecting a torrent of replies now with obvious examples I'd forgotten about(!) :-)
Apple was already mentioned. Tyco and ITT both come to mind as well, although I think the toy company and the for-profit college have licensing agreements with the respective industrial conglomerates.
Hershey Ice Cream and Hershey Chocolate as well.
> If she really was using their name improperly, Tumblr would have been within their rights.
I agree. But she wasn't trying to pass herself off as anyone else, merely use the handle she's been using for over a decade.
> Yanking it out from under her and selling it to someone else is just rude at best, and criminal at worst.
I don't see how it's criminal, though I agree it's rude. I run the MeowCat messaging website (http://meowc.at/ -- it's a cross between Twitter and blogging) and I certainly wouldn't allow a company to take over a user's identity like Tumblr have done.
So if you're reading this Danah, if you want to create Zephoria on MeowCat, I promise I won't give your account to someone else.
I agree. But she wasn't trying to pass herself off as anyone else, merely use the handle she's been using for over a decade.
> Yanking it out from under her and selling it to someone else is just rude at best, and criminal at worst.
I don't see how it's criminal, though I agree it's rude. I run the MeowCat messaging website (http://meowc.at/ -- it's a cross between Twitter and blogging) and I certainly wouldn't allow a company to take over a user's identity like Tumblr have done.
So if you're reading this Danah, if you want to create Zephoria on MeowCat, I promise I won't give your account to someone else.
> I certainly wouldn't allow a company to take over a user's identity like Tumblr have done
Not even for $1000? $5,000? $10,000? We don't know if a favour was done or paid, if any.
Not even for $1000? $5,000? $10,000? We don't know if a favour was done or paid, if any.
Actually I hadn't considered that use-case.
Nice idea of "promise" you have. First you toot your horn without adding any value to the conversation, and then even THAT turns out to be empty words?
> First you toot your horn without adding any value to the conversation
And what value have YOU added to the conversation?
> THAT turns out to be empty words?
This will only be the case if at some time I renege on this promise, which I don't intend to do.
And what value have YOU added to the conversation?
> THAT turns out to be empty words?
This will only be the case if at some time I renege on this promise, which I don't intend to do.
Was she paying for tumblr service, or was it free?
If it as free, there's not much recourse....
it is potentially criminal if they sold it but they are stupid if they didn't? did i read that wrong?
Nope, you read that correctly.
To do something that slimy and not get paid for it is stupid. (The fact that it was stupid in the first place does affect the fact that not getting paid for it is stupid in itself.)
To do something that slimy and not get paid for it is stupid. (The fact that it was stupid in the first place does affect the fact that not getting paid for it is stupid in itself.)
Seems pretty dumb for a "social media consulting company" to get on the bad side of a social media poster child.
I'm really surprised they've managed to beat her in google ranking.
Not when I search for 'Zephoria'.
.org (her site) has the first 6 spots; .com (them) has the next 4; and then it's her twitter and flickr accounts.
.org (her site) has the first 6 spots; .com (them) has the next 4; and then it's her twitter and flickr accounts.
Another reminder that we should all just get our own domains.
Using a subdomain of another company is always risky and it's bad branding.
Using a subdomain of another company is always risky and it's bad branding.
In fact, Tumblr lets you use your own domain. She could use tumblr.zephoria.org and Zephoria Inc. could use tumblr.zephoria.com. Everyone wins!
Um, no. These people were disappeared: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rettig_Report
Apparently her blog was only moved. Inconvenient, yes. Gross human rights violation, no. See also: comparing yourself to Rosa Parks.
Apparently her blog was only moved. Inconvenient, yes. Gross human rights violation, no. See also: comparing yourself to Rosa Parks.
I don't see any reason to fret over a word, it was never compared to human rights violation in the post and in the context they did disappear her from her chosen handle on the site which is just as much as removing her blog as it isn't linked to the other in any other way.
"Disappear" (transitive) is absolutely a reference to a human-rights violation. See http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/disappear:
disappear (ˌdɪsəˈpɪə)
— vb
1. ( intr ) to cease to be visible; vanish
2. ( intr ) to go away or become lost, esp secretly or without explanation
3. ( intr ) to cease to exist, have effect, or be known; become extinct or lost: the pain has disappeared
4. ( tr ) (esp in South and Central America) to arrest secretly and presumably imprison or kill (a member of an opposing political group)
disappear (ˌdɪsəˈpɪə)
— vb
1. ( intr ) to cease to be visible; vanish
2. ( intr ) to go away or become lost, esp secretly or without explanation
3. ( intr ) to cease to exist, have effect, or be known; become extinct or lost: the pain has disappeared
4. ( tr ) (esp in South and Central America) to arrest secretly and presumably imprison or kill (a member of an opposing political group)
In the fourth of four variants, where all three of the earlier ones seem to apply well here. Language is language. Causes and issues, no matter how grave, don't get to own bits of it.
None of the first three apply here. They are all clearly marked as intransitive ("The train disappeared into the night") rather than transitive ("Tumblr disappeared her").
The first three are intransitive senses; I'm sorry the abbreviation "intr" wasn't familiar to you, but it's quite common in dictionaries. Please delete your unnecessarily aggressive comment, ajross.
It's an inflammatory word whose use is designed to associate with despicable and unpleasant deeds. It's in bad taste to dilute the meaning of the word for personal vanity.
It's a perfectly valid usage that does not at all necessarily imply political assassinations or other despicable. No reasonable person would interpret her post's title as claiming any kind of equivalence with political assassination, and any suspicion of that wouldn't survive a cursory reading of the actual post.
Also, Ms. Boyd holds a PhD from the Berkeley School of Information and is a well known & respected Microsoft researcher in social networking & media and online identity. The professional interest in not having broken links to her writings alone is sufficient to remove this matter from the realm of "personal vanity," nevermind the more substantive yet slippery matters of identity.
Also, Ms. Boyd holds a PhD from the Berkeley School of Information and is a well known & respected Microsoft researcher in social networking & media and online identity. The professional interest in not having broken links to her writings alone is sufficient to remove this matter from the realm of "personal vanity," nevermind the more substantive yet slippery matters of identity.
Additionally, the post title 'Tumblr disappears [someone]' pretty much implies they're not being sent to the gulag or gitmo, it's just a figure of speech.
People sent to the gulag were, as far as I know, never disappeared. They were arrested, subjected to a trial, and sentenced. Transitive "disappear" entered modern English from Spanish used to describe the actions of the US's allies against their citizens during the Cold War.
Absolutely agreed. What Tumblr did was rotten, but we live in an age where people are genuinely disappeared on a daily basis, and we've even had posts to HN regarding missing persons. It's very misleading to use the word to mean something different given the amount of proper usage it receives.
Yeah, but, if you're a very important social media researcher who has important information to disseminate to your followers in order to justify your own very importance, then anything short of
"Tumblr disappeared me…"
isn't going to generate the same outrage, and publicity, that Xeni Jardin did when she tried to erase Violet Blue's posts from BoingBoing. "Erase posts" being the conventional and operating phrase. So don't blame her; it's the social media-generated apathy.
"Tumblr disappeared me…"
isn't going to generate the same outrage, and publicity, that Xeni Jardin did when she tried to erase Violet Blue's posts from BoingBoing. "Erase posts" being the conventional and operating phrase. So don't blame her; it's the social media-generated apathy.
No, I will blame her. Of course lying and exaggerating will generate more outrage, that's exactly what I meant by my claim of "linkbait". She could have generated more outrage by saying that Tumblr raped her, but I do not believe the ends (generating outrage) justify the means (being misleading).
I was being sarcastic if reference for not blaming her. For a person who markets themselves as a preeminent scholar on all things social, it seems odd that the only times I hear about her is when she's over-dramatizing some issue related to her personal interests or herself.
Again, this person has never created anything, held down a job that required results or contributed anything aside from opinion and self-centered promotion to any discourse. She reads about what others do in order to pass judgement and when people, or in this case Tumblr, doesn't take her seriously, she whines. I expect more reports of violations from this source in the future.
Again, this person has never created anything, held down a job that required results or contributed anything aside from opinion and self-centered promotion to any discourse. She reads about what others do in order to pass judgement and when people, or in this case Tumblr, doesn't take her seriously, she whines. I expect more reports of violations from this source in the future.
Um, no. 'Disappear' as a transitive verb predates all of that by many decades. E.g.:
1897 Chem. News 19 Mar. 143 "We progressively disappear the faces of the dodecahedron."
See also: lighten up, Francis.
See also: lighten up, Francis.
There's an ongoing Twitter thread between danah and David Karp:
http://bettween.com/davidkarp/zephoria
http://bettween.com/davidkarp/zephoria
"@davidkarp I wrote back to your team & CCed you. What I want is my acct name back. I'd be happy to help you improve your notifying processes"
That's the best combination of kindness and passive aggressiveness I've seen in years.
That's the best combination of kindness and passive aggressiveness I've seen in years.
While I can feel some sympathy, I can't feel outrage.
It's not outrageous. They did not delete the content -they moved it (at first she complained about losing her data, then retrenched to complaining about broken links -so what was the real problem? She does not own the URL, the site operator does. She made assumptions which proved untrue. The result of such is unfortunate and inconvenient.
It's worthy of a rant of displeasure with how they reach name collision resolution -but it's hardly an affront to the person.
That is to question the "disappeared me" harking to military summary executions of actual physical people? (not online handle). If anything, that's an outrage in itself. A delusion(?) of importance.
I think it's basically a problem of disconnect in expectations.
TL;DR. My data was deleted -I'm upset. Oh, wait, it wasn't; It was moved. I'm pissed anyway.
It's not outrageous. They did not delete the content -they moved it (at first she complained about losing her data, then retrenched to complaining about broken links -so what was the real problem? She does not own the URL, the site operator does. She made assumptions which proved untrue. The result of such is unfortunate and inconvenient.
It's worthy of a rant of displeasure with how they reach name collision resolution -but it's hardly an affront to the person.
That is to question the "disappeared me" harking to military summary executions of actual physical people? (not online handle). If anything, that's an outrage in itself. A delusion(?) of importance.
I think it's basically a problem of disconnect in expectations.
TL;DR. My data was deleted -I'm upset. Oh, wait, it wasn't; It was moved. I'm pissed anyway.
So if gmail or yahoo or hotmail or whatever, suddenly decided that your username is trademarked and "moved" your email, without notifying you or giving you a chance to contest the trademark infringement, you'd be ok with it? You'd sympathize with yourself but wouldn't be outraged with their actions?
I could only expect what they outline in their TOSes.
However, that said, mail is different in that mixing signals (email intended for me going into a mailbox now under control of someone else) might leave them open to liability, depending on what kind of information could be compromised). So, I don't think that would be a valid comparison.
Look, her basic argument was her data (content) was lost, then, learning it wasn't, revised the complaint to, my links are broken. That's moving the goalpost. That was my main point.
However, that said, mail is different in that mixing signals (email intended for me going into a mailbox now under control of someone else) might leave them open to liability, depending on what kind of information could be compromised). So, I don't think that would be a valid comparison.
Look, her basic argument was her data (content) was lost, then, learning it wasn't, revised the complaint to, my links are broken. That's moving the goalpost. That was my main point.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but trademark law does not come into the picture here at all. It's a name collision. Resolution of such are generally relegated to site operator.
No one is claiming she's infringing on their trademark, as far as I know.
No one is claiming she's infringing on their trademark, as far as I know.
The sad part of this is that it won't matter in the least. If frequent outages don't keep people away, this certainly won't.
I don't know about that. Outages don't really hurt your "cool factor" so much, whereas bending over for corporations (and thereby looking corporate yourself) really does.
You may have your priorities backwards. An assault on human dignity is far worse than frequent outages, especially for a free service.
I understand frustration but Zephoria is trademarked from 2002.
http://www.trademarkia.com/zephoria-78132833.html
So my question is following: when trademark should be enforced and when not? If a company X is an internet consulting company and somebody has a blog talking about internet using the same name, is that trademark infringement? Does Tumblr (or any blog operator) need to contact user to explain if they get Demand Letter from lawyer representing the trademark owner and Tumblr's legal department determines it is valid?
I'm not trying to defend anybody but just want to understand how trademark can be enforced.
So my question is following: when trademark should be enforced and when not? If a company X is an internet consulting company and somebody has a blog talking about internet using the same name, is that trademark infringement? Does Tumblr (or any blog operator) need to contact user to explain if they get Demand Letter from lawyer representing the trademark owner and Tumblr's legal department determines it is valid?
I'm not trying to defend anybody but just want to understand how trademark can be enforced.
Trademarks are inherently limited in scope. If I'm making widgets named FOO, and I've registered that trademark, I have no inherent right to FOO.com or @FOO or anything else that's completely general and may have nothing to do with widgets.
http://www.chillingeffects.org/domain/faq.cgi
> Of course, you aren?t expected to look up trademark registrations around the world or research legal issues like common law trademark rights. That?s why the Policy requires the trademark owner (the complainant) to prove bad faith and why the Policy offers domain name holders the opportunity to demonstrate that they have rights or legitimate interests in the domain name.
http://www.chillingeffects.org/domain/faq.cgi
> Of course, you aren?t expected to look up trademark registrations around the world or research legal issues like common law trademark rights. That?s why the Policy requires the trademark owner (the complainant) to prove bad faith and why the Policy offers domain name holders the opportunity to demonstrate that they have rights or legitimate interests in the domain name.
That's true regarding infringement, but trademark dilution can apply to uses that aren't in competition with or relevant to the trademark holder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trademark_Dilution_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trademark_Dilution_Act
The really difficult thing is that, while in many cases the demand letters are legitimate and appropriate, in some cases like this they aren't. If Zephoria sued danah for trademark infringement, I would certainly hope they would lose since danah can probably prove that she's been using the pseudonym since 1998, 4 years before their trademark issued.
Could it be that Tumblr handles are actually owned by Tumblr, thus it is Tumblr which was "infringing on trademark" and needed to act on Demand Letter?
I would love if you or somebody else with more legal knowledge than me (which is not hard :)) can explain this.
If their legal department determined this is "valid" (assuming that means she is infringing on the mark, which is the only case in which I could possibly see not contacting her), their legal department must be staffed by baboons.
From my armchair lawyering understanding, the rule is that Trademark must actively be enforced or you risk diluting the mark.
However its not clear how strictly it must be enforced, unfortunately that means it tends to be enforced more strictly then is absolutely necessary "just in case".
However its not clear how strictly it must be enforced, unfortunately that means it tends to be enforced more strictly then is absolutely necessary "just in case".
Another case of "if you're not paying for it, don't expect shit"
If I remember well, there has been at least one precedent involving a music publication called pitchfork. Like two years ago. Tumblr just seized the URL and I think the matter was histerically handled by a crazy girl at Tumblr.
Here, in France we had a David Vs Goliath situation years ago: an old woman called Milka who had a microscopic sewing/retouching business had to fight Milka/Kraft's bigwig lawyers for her milka.fr domain name. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milka_contre_Kraft_Foods
Here, in France we had a David Vs Goliath situation years ago: an old woman called Milka who had a microscopic sewing/retouching business had to fight Milka/Kraft's bigwig lawyers for her milka.fr domain name. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milka_contre_Kraft_Foods
Tumblr renames almost-dead [0] account after notifying user [1] and not hearing back. When she complains, they give it back [0]. What assholes.
Can I flag this? I'm flagging this.
[0] Last post Jan 21; 5 posts since Sept '10. http://zephoria.tumblr.com/ [1] http://twitter.com/#!/davidkarp/status/63313370283122688
Can I flag this? I'm flagging this.
[0] Last post Jan 21; 5 posts since Sept '10. http://zephoria.tumblr.com/ [1] http://twitter.com/#!/davidkarp/status/63313370283122688
They e-mailed her on Passover and gave her 72 hours to reply[1].
Assholes in my book.
[1]: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/04/27/tumblr-...
Assholes in my book.
[1]: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/04/27/tumblr-...
Welcome to The Cloud. We have an internal policy that determines what is OK to store in the cloud and what we store on internal servers. e.g. sensitive strategic docs don't get put on Google Docs. All customer service emails stay on internal servers and aren't outsourced to cloud providers. Our mission critical servers are our own hardware, but we use cloud providers for non-critical services.
are you up more than gmail? if so, what does it cost you to meet or beat their uptime? also, in the case of google docs, you own your data, not google.
Sure, assuming everything is working properly. What happens if Google decides to lock you out of your account?
But... but.. but.. Google would only do that if you did something obviously wrong, so that makes it ok.
The question of historical precedent is interesting. In her post she says she's been using "zephoria" personally since 1998; Wayback Machine shows a zephoria.org landing page in 2002 and a full website in 2003. And she had a public profile even back then (There was an NYT article ... wow, in 2003).
The trademark apparently was from 2002, but hypothetically, had it been a few years later, would having the same name as the handle and personal domain of a (mildly) well-known person be relevant for a decision to grant a trademark?
The trademark apparently was from 2002, but hypothetically, had it been a few years later, would having the same name as the handle and personal domain of a (mildly) well-known person be relevant for a decision to grant a trademark?
It's a lame move from both tumblr and the company zephoria. Here I'd like to ask if anoyone heard of twitter stealing one's username? I was once very surprised finding that http://twitter.com/#!/bmw is used by some guy, while the company uses other twitter accounts http://twitter.com/#!/search/users/bmw and I wonder if they even tried to get the username.
Found the old site in the google cache:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:c9cda-O...
Last post was in January, but she wasn't squatting by any means.
Last post was in January, but she wasn't squatting by any means.
I've written an article about this particular situation:
http://www.hashcollisions.com/2011/04/a-solomonic-response-t...
http://www.hashcollisions.com/2011/04/a-solomonic-response-t...
Some more context on this: http://www.betabeat.com/2011/04/27/tumblr-gave-danah-boyds-u...
Title fix: she spells her name danah Boyd (lower-case letters)
Thanks for letting me know but I'm not planning to change it - though a moderator is welcome to, if they're reading this.
There's no semantic difference between upper and lower case in a proper name and I suspect more people would complain I'd typoed or got the name wrong if I corrected it to the "right" version. It's like transliterating the French "é" to a US English "e"; technically erroneous, but a better fit for Anglophones.
There's no semantic difference between upper and lower case in a proper name and I suspect more people would complain I'd typoed or got the name wrong if I corrected it to the "right" version. It's like transliterating the French "é" to a US English "e"; technically erroneous, but a better fit for Anglophones.
True, there's no semantic difference between spelling somebody's name correctly and incorrectly. It's "just" a matter of respect.
And titles are typically capitalized.
b
:)
:)
WOW, that's radical. Next up, she'll add a "/" to her blog name, and we'll all remember that it isn't 1985 any more.
Peter, could you fix the headline? Her name is lower case.
http://www.danah.org/name.html
http://www.danah.org/name.html
If The Headline Is In Title Case, is it still appropriate to use lowercase letters for her name?
Of course it is. It's a proper name. Are we going to capitalize the "i"s in Apple products?
I can only assume that's her actual name, as unusual as it is. But a proper name is a proper name.
I can only assume that's her actual name, as unusual as it is. But a proper name is a proper name.
If you are pretentious, then yes.
It's her name ... she gets to decide how it's spelled.
Sure. That doesn't make it not pretentious, however.
update: Tumblr has now restored boyd's account name: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/04/27/tumblr-...
I don't matter. But - goodbye tumblr.
Did this marketing company forget what happened to Cook's Source when they screwed with the little people? The internet doesn't respond kindly to that type of bullying:
http://techland.time.com/2010/11/17/cooks-source-magazine-co...
http://techland.time.com/2010/11/17/cooks-source-magazine-co...
"Change your blogs name. Not that big of a deal."
Good riddance. Her vacuous posts, a step above a "social ninja/guru" need not tarnish the fact that she somehow managed to get a PhD, by making the revelation that Myspace is old, Facebook is new.
If you want a blog -- just buy your own domain, use a service that you can replicate yourself in case you need to (e.g. Wordpress or plain HTML, using a plain web server -- GitHub Pages is free of charge ;)) ; and do monthly backups of everything (the storage of an entire blog on S3, Dropbox, or heck, GitHub, is cheap).
Personally I'm using GitHub pages, on my own domain, using a commenting system simpler than Disqus, but that I'm hosting on a free GAE account. Wordpress with regular dumps is also appropriate.
My blog is not popular, but I like feeling in control. I'm surprised that people haven't seen this coming with services like Tumblr.
Personally I'm using GitHub pages, on my own domain, using a commenting system simpler than Disqus, but that I'm hosting on a free GAE account. Wordpress with regular dumps is also appropriate.
My blog is not popular, but I like feeling in control. I'm surprised that people haven't seen this coming with services like Tumblr.
S3 could do the exact same thing tumblr just did (though for different reasons, granted). This is the risk of the cloud in general (or really of outsourcing ANY labor in general) and is not isolated to tumblr etc. More a question of where you draw the line in terms of price/risk.
The problem is that Tumblr is a freemium, and most users are not Tumblr's customers, but rather their product.
By using S3, you are Amazon's customer. And my whole point is not that you should host it yourself, but rather that you should use services which makes it easy for you to migrate, in case shit happens.
Setting up a Wordpress blog is trivial, lots of alternative providers other than Wordpress.com are available, doing backups from time to time is also trivial, and if you own your own domain, restoring your blog can be done in only a couple of hours tops.
The only reason to use something like Tumblr (IMHO) is the ease of setup (that becomes painful once you want to customize), and the social aspects of it -- but nothing stops you from automatically sending all your links to be posted under your Facebook/Twitter account; and you can give users the option to comment under their Facebook/Twitter ID -- as long as you keep the comments / the articles / the domain, I don't see a problem there.
By using S3, you are Amazon's customer. And my whole point is not that you should host it yourself, but rather that you should use services which makes it easy for you to migrate, in case shit happens.
Setting up a Wordpress blog is trivial, lots of alternative providers other than Wordpress.com are available, doing backups from time to time is also trivial, and if you own your own domain, restoring your blog can be done in only a couple of hours tops.
The only reason to use something like Tumblr (IMHO) is the ease of setup (that becomes painful once you want to customize), and the social aspects of it -- but nothing stops you from automatically sending all your links to be posted under your Facebook/Twitter account; and you can give users the option to comment under their Facebook/Twitter ID -- as long as you keep the comments / the articles / the domain, I don't see a problem there.
I think there's a place where "freemium" is the right fit... if you have non-essential content, or don't spend much time or effort on your web properties, it's probably an ok thing.
Once you have anything worth backing up/restoring, you should start paying for what you use, because being a customer means something (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1684732 ... "If you're not paying, you're the product").
There are those who can't pay, and for that reason I do think it's good to fight this kind of blatant identity-theft.
Still a lesson: If you can afford it and if you have anything of worth on someone else's servers, you should be paying for that privilege.
Once you have anything worth backing up/restoring, you should start paying for what you use, because being a customer means something (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1684732 ... "If you're not paying, you're the product").
There are those who can't pay, and for that reason I do think it's good to fight this kind of blatant identity-theft.
Still a lesson: If you can afford it and if you have anything of worth on someone else's servers, you should be paying for that privilege.
If she really was using their name improperly, Tumblr would have been within their rights... But they STILL should have contacted her first and let her try to explain. Yanking it out from under her and selling it to someone else is just rude at best, and criminal at worst. (I'm assuming they sold it... If they didn't, they're dumber than I think. This kind of BS isn't worth it unless they get something from it.)