Israel buys @israel Twitter name from porn site owner

A Twitter early bird has made a tidy sum from selling the @Israel username to the Israeli government. Israel Meléndez, who runs an adult website, set up the account in 2007 to escape the attentions of an ex-girlfriend but soon abandoned the name when followers mistook him for the official Israeli government.

"My account was basically unused because I was getting dozens of replies every day from people who thought the account belonged to the state of Israel," Meléndez told Público.

When he checked the account he was astonished to find a message from the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, proposing a sale of the username for a reported six-figure sum.

A spokesperson for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Yigal Palmor, confirmed they had bought the username. "We thought we could put it to better use than he did," said Palmor.

It is one of the only cases of 'cybersquatting' to have come to light and is reminiscent of the first-come, first-served scrabble for domain names that marred the dotcom boom in the early days of the internet.

While Twitter has its own regulations banning the idea of ransoming an account, Meléndez said the social networking site had provided advice on the transaction, allowing the Israeli government to use a loophole in the terms and conditions to purchase the username.

"They [Twitter] don't permit the sale of accounts, so what they [the Israeli government] did was to buy the user," said Meléndez. "At the end of the day the result is the same, but you are not doing anything illegal."

According to Twitter, "Attempts to sell, buy, or solicit other forms of payment in exchange for usernames are violations and may result in permanent account suspension". ·