The #Meta plot thickens! Turns out that #Facebook doesn't actually own the name Meta because it belongs to another company that's currently in stealth mode.
That didn't seem to stop Facebook from publicly announcing the name change and branding, quite the Zuck move. 
Meta (the real one) have posted a public letter about this on their front page. I'm linking the Archive copy because the front page will be eventually replaced by an actual website:
🔗 https://web.archive.org/web/20211103213225/https://meta.company/
@guysoft @polychrome wow, and also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_(academic_company) which was acquired by Zuck back in 2017 and recently announced its closure…
I hope this hurts Facebook way more than it hurts Meta's people.
(But then, I hope *everything* hurts Facebook.)
@polychrome I wish I was surprised.
@polychrome I saw a post on the /r/gamedev subreddit about something similar. A game studio called Metawe that got their Facebook page taken down for "impersonation" (apparently they've had the name trademarked since 2017)
https://old.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/qmycif/wow_facebook_meta_just_unpublished_our_game/
@avery so many lawsuits.
🐱
@Craftplacer stealth mode.
@Craftplacer yeah now's the time to break stealth. They can get more advertising by just telling people what they do than keeping the curtains closed at this point.
@dilans stealth mode startups do exist tho.
@polychrome I am going to call anything thai is even shittier than a "dick move" a "Zuck move" going forward
@polychrome @msh and for the worst, a “Zuck-dick move”
@polychrome where did you hear about this?
@faun the link in my post.
@polychrome I mean where did you come across that link. If it was a place with discussion I would like to see the discussion.
@faun me too, it's been awhile since I've posted it and I'm not on my PC. There might be some discussion on this by now.
@polychrome @mtm I want to believe.
Apparently the nate skullik turned up and expressed willingness to talk about the technology meta company are supposedly making, no one engaged him though https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29077106
For me, them winning in court then never releasing a product would actually be the ideal outcome, the sacred word would be settle in the ground, safe from the profanity of use
@polychrome the crucial thing is the fact that Facebook's lawyers tried to buy that trademark off of that company, were told "no", but Facebook went with that name change anyway.
That means that:
a). Facebook *knew* of the other trademark;
b). Facebook decided to infringe anyway.
This is *intentional* trademark infringement. Ain't gonna end well for Facebook.
@rysiek they may have taken their cue from Apple who knowingly infringed on Cisco's iPhone trademark and later settled it in court.
🇪🇺
@polychrome @rmdes there are thousands of companies called Meta, but this specific one sounds fake to me https://www.zylstra.org/blog/2021/11/meta-on-meta-and-meta-company/
@polychrome this is gold xD