Facebook has been trying fervently to protect its brand in recent weeks, launching legal campaigns against sites who use the ‘-book’ suffix in their names. However, this week it has emerged that Facebook is growing increasingly concerned about ‘Face-‘ prefix and has sought to own the trademark for it.
The idea behind the move is to secure the brand and to make sure that it will not suffer any unwanted associations with sites that use the ‘Face-‘ prefix to capitalise on the social network’s success.
This sort of approach is not new in the world of big business and if Facebook is successful, its trademark will obviously come with certain conditions. For instance, it is likely that the trademark will only be upheld when those using it run websites that incorporate messaging services.
Some smaller sites like Teachbook and Lamebook have already expressed their disappointment at legal action taken against them by the social networking giant, whilst the likes of Placebook and Faceporn have also been the subject of legal campaigns.
All of these sites have been targeted by Facebook in the last twelve months as part of the company’s increased bid to defend its brand with aggressive action where appropriate.
