A week ago I wrote about how I registered the Facebook vanity URL facebook.com/kiwibank from New Zealand bank Kiwibank.

As I suspected this would not last for very long. Kiwibank would surely wake up and realise that someone had not been doing their job. And I was right; today I received the following email from Facebook:

Hi,

The username you selected was removed for violating Facebook’s policies. A Facebook username should have a clear connection to one’s identity. In addition, impersonating anyone or anything is prohibited. If you see other people with usernames that do not accurately represent their real names, it is only because they have not yet been removed for misuse.

To select a new username, please visit the following link:

www.facebook.com/username

Thanks for your understanding,

Allison
User Operations
Facebook

So there you have it: This is what happens when you try to register a brand name as a vanity URL with Facebook.