Meta (recognized as an extremist organization in the Russian Federation) risks facing serious legal problems. As you know, in July it launched the Threads service, which is positioned as a rival to Twitter (which, however, has already changed its name to X). The service quickly gained more than 100 million subscribers, and although the euphoria has now passed, and the number of active users is estimated at about 8 million per day, the result is still very impressive.
However, Meta's mood may be spoiled by a small British company, Threads Software Limited, specializing in software development. It is, of course, pointless to compare the fame and scale of these two companies, but the British company registered its name in its homeland much earlier than Meta launched its service. And now Threads Software Limited is demanding that Meta stop using the Threads name for its service in the UK. 30 days (starting from October 30) are given to fulfill the requirement. If Meta does not comply with this condition, Threads Software Limited will take legal action. “We recognise that this is a classic ‘David and Goliath’ battle with Meta,” firm managing director John Yardley said. “And whilst they may think they can use whatever name they want, that does not give them the right to use the Threads brand name.”
Representatives of Threads Software Limited also reported that over the course of this year, Meta lawyers contacted them four times with an offer to purchase the Threads.app domain belonging to the British company, but each time they were refused. The Domain Incite resource, reporting this news, assesses the situation as paradoxical: the fact is that the Meta company is one of the most implacable fighters for its intellectual rights, but finds itself in a situation where it itself violates the rights of others. It is also noteworthy that the company launched the Threads service without first purchasing a suitable domain name, which can be considered a serious mistake. The domain Threads.com belongs to the company behind the corporate messenger Threads (previously it was reported that traffic to the Threads.com site grew from 88,000 in June to almost 11 million in July). And apparently, it did not want to sell it to Meta, just as Threads Software Limited did not want to part with the Threads.app domain. As a result, the Threads service uses the domain name Threads.net.
