Why are brands and celebrities always able to get short usernames that were definitely taken before? What happens to the previous owner of the username?
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They buy it, or could use legal stuff to say it is infringing their brand.
People often register domains and usernames that they expect big brands to try and snag in the future. They can then sell it to them for a profit.
Platforms make money off ads which require users to engage. You never really “own” the user name. It’s in their terms of service when you sign up.
If Beyonce wants to join Twitter, her tweeting from @beyonce where she’s easily found instead of @beyonce36488_5764 is a lot more valuable for engagement and ad money.
It depends on the platform involved.
In the U.S. most User License agreements include a clause that the service provider can stop or refuse services at any time for any reason. Whether that is legally ok or enforceable is another matter. EULA’s tend to include lots of clauses that aren’t legally enforceable, but most people don’t have the resources to fight them.
So a platform can sometimes just notify a user that they have to change their username. Doesn’t matter that the user got to it first. So long as they preserve the user’s content the user won’t have much standing if they haven’t built a revenue stream using that name that allows them to demonstrate real harm in a court case.
Or the celebrity/brand can reach out to the user and ask for it. Possibly offering money for the release. They would work with the platform to swap the username without transferring any content over.
Or the platform can look at the account to determine if its still in use and just delete the old one and reissue to the new requestor. Say if the account hasn’t been used in 5 years or something.
At the end of the day the service platform is a business created to make money. They are going to take the route that does that.
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