itch.io taken down by Funko's Brandshield AI-powered IP protection software

Itch.io, one of the best websites for hosting indie games, has been taken down by Funko's AI-powered brand protection software.

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Open indie game marketplace itch.io has been taken down by Funko. The company's AI-powered Brandshield IP protection software generated what itch.io describes as "some bogus phishing report to our registrar iwantmyname." The company announced the outage on its social media platforms including X.

Here's a full transcript of the tweet thread:

I kid you not, @itchio has been taken down by @OriginalFunko because they use some trash "AI Powered" Brand Protection Software called @BrandShieldltd that created some bogus Phishing report to our registrar, @iwantmyname , who ignored our response and just disabled the domain

I hope you are all having a nice Sunday evening

Also, for transparency, we *did* take the disputed page down as soon as we got the notice because it's not worth fighting stuff like that. Regardless, our registrar's automated system likely kicked to disable the domain since no one read our confirmation of removal.

itch.io did confirm in a reply on X that the servers are still there.but the website is still offline, and we hope the team over there can get things back on track. They appeared to have done everything that would be expected of such a large platform, and hopefully that will be more apparent if and when a human takes a look at this. In the latest update itch.io posted "If the downtime exceeds 8 hours then we'll likely prioritize deploying a new domain. Hopefully things are able to get sorted out before then." For now you can follow itch.io on X for more updates.

CEO/EIC/EIEIO

Asif Khan is the CEO, EIC, and majority shareholder of Shacknews. He began his career in video game journalism as a freelancer in 2001 for Tendobox.com. Asif is a CPA and was formerly an investment adviser representative. After much success in his own personal investments, he retired from his day job in financial services and is currently focused on new private investments. His favorite PC game of all time is Duke Nukem 3D, and he is an unapologetic fan of most things Nintendo. Asif first frequented the Shack when it was sCary's Shugashack to find all things Quake. When he is not immersed in investments or gaming he is a purveyor of fine electronic music. Asif also has an irrational love of Cleveland sports.

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