Twitter calls time on sports stat tweeting

Tue May 5 2009, 17:37 PM

Twitter is suspending the accounts of sports information service StatTweets, which is run by StatSheet developer Robbie Allen. StatTweets enables users to follow their favourite US sports teams in the NBL, NFL and college leagues. Allen created 650 accounts – one for each NFL, NBA and college sports team – which draw information from the StatSheet website.

The feeds attracted a combined 63,000 followers before Twitter decided to cut them off. Twitter says the accounts violated its terms of service, which prohibit copyright infringement, mass account creation and ‘squatting’.

However, commentators say that if Twitter had examined the incidence of squatting and copyright infringement more carefully, they would have realised neither case breaches its terms of service. Twitter’s mass account creation rule assumes that the offending users employ bots, but Allen and his wife created all 650 accounts by hand.

Though Twitter portrays itself as entirely open to developers wishing to use its API, its apparently slapdash approach to applying its terms of service may disquiet some in the developer community.

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