Today we're sharing additional guidelines about our Trade Mark Policy based on community feedback that we received.

[[[global:guest]]]

@Mastodon The original trademark policy has been bothering me for years since I started this server with a "mastodon" subdomain (mastodon.moule.world, though I do the domain trick where "mastodon" is hidden on some fedi instances) on the same day the original trademark policy was created (December 21, 2022), so thank you so much for clarifying this finally.

[henry@badly.co]

@juanbits @Mastodon I agree

[cenobyte@mastodon.thirring.org]

@haubles @stux @hisold @Mastodon where would mastodon.thirring.org fit in on all of this. The domain's been in use for almost 4 years now. I get that I'm grandfathered, but had I just created that would it have been a problem? Also I would I have to put up any disclaimers. This is a subdomain of thirring.org. Does that matter?

[ueckueck@dresden.network]

@Mastodon
Just wtf!

[hisold@toot.io]

@cenobyte @haubles @stux @Mastodon Yes that is allowed. See here: https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2026/08/sharing-guidelines-about-mastodons-trade-mark-policy/#:~:text=that%2E-,We,Permitted,-example%2Ecom

[haubles@hachyderm.io]

@hisold thank you

@cenobyte @stux @Mastodon

[troy@opencoaster.net]

@Mastodon Q on this, if I have a button on my site that says "Sign in with Mastodon" wouldn't that also be confusing then if you assume users would think it's "Mastodon GmbH"?

I think what's become confusing is having the service you're protecting the trademark on be named the same as the software.

[milo@ostkind.social]

@Mastodon A pretty disappointing decision.

[ret@furry.engineer]

@Mastodon better, thanks for improving it. It’s still horrible legal shit though. You do not need to do this stuff proactively. You own the trademark. If there’s an instance of abuse you have the right to deal with that. You do not need to participate in this sort of weird behaviour.

[ret@furry.engineer]

@Mastodon also you should rename mastodon dot social to something else to avoid confusing users of the open source software.

[xvilo@mastodon.org.uk]

@bazkie @Mastodon that’s not how that works obviously

[bazkie@beige.party]

@xvilo @Mastodon suck some more corporate dick

[l@lea.pet]

@Mastodon@mastodon.social ​​

[xvilo@mastodon.social]

@bazkie @xvilo@mastodon.org.uk @Mastodon Dus je comment deze opbouwende reactie, maar blocked mij direct? Gelukkig federeren we mooi op een gedecentraliseerd systeem. Als jij je niet blij bent met wat mastodon doet, dan kan je natuurlijk iets anders gebruik om alsnog aan de fediverse te hangen. Dit soort taal is absoluut niet opbouwend, en voegt ook niks toe aan de discussie.

[bazkie@beige.party]

@xvilo@mastodon.social @xvilo@mastodon.org.uk @Mastodon zuig meer corporate piemel

[bugbear@indiepocalypse.social]

@bazkie @Mastodon Why does Mastodon the company even exist? I assume it's so they can receive grants and funding, because otherwise it seems quite pointless.

There's that EU FOSS grant fund thing. I wonder, do all projects have to incorporate to receive funding from it?

[bugbear@indiepocalypse.social]

@xvilo @bazkie starting Email Ltd tomorrow and registering "email" and "e-mail" trademarks. You better be nice to me if you want to "email someone" ever again.

(The email example stolen from @hamatti )

[xvilo@mastodon.org.uk]

@bugbear @bazkie @hamatti that’s an unrelated example, you would start “activitypub” trademark tomorrow. You can not hijack someone’s codebase and its name. Mastodon is just an implementation of activitypub. This would be the same as crying over Gmail being a registered trademark. There’s a difference here and your example shows you don’t understand it properly.

Additional @bazkie just simply blocking me over this is ridiculous

[hamatti@mastodon.world]

@xvilo @bugbear @bazkie

The main difference between Gmail and Mastodon is that Gmail is proprietary software run as a service by a single company. Mastodon is open source software explicitly designed to be ran by people in federated fashion.

[bugbear@indiepocalypse.social]

@xvilo @hamatti 1) I hope you delete your server soon. Not that you have to (it was created before the stated date), but to protect Mastodon's trademark.

2) No, it's like Oracle owning trademark for JavaScript. It's silly, it's pointless, it puts people in an awkward position if Oracle suddenly decided they wanna go aggressively after people using JavaScript instead of ECMAScript. Another good example nginx decided tomorrow that you need to put disclaimer on your web servers to avoid confusion.