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hannah aubry@haubles@hachyderm.io (2026-08-13 02:10:20)
Hey friends, it's me again :blobfoxwave:
We have more news to share today, though I must admit, this news is a little less fun.
Recently, the @Mastodon team received a fair number of questions about our trade mark policy. We realised we could add some guidelines to help make the Policy more clear, so over the last few months, we did just that! I'll post a "plain English" version of the guidelines as a comment.
You can read more background about the changes we made, and see the guidelines themselves, in this blog post:
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2026/08/sharing-guidelines-about-mastodons-trade-mark-policy/
And the trade mark policy page is updated too:
https://joinmastodon.org/trademark
#Mastodon #Fediverse #MastoAdmin #MastoDev #SocialWeb
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hannah aubry@haubles@hachyderm.io (2026-08-13 02:12:12)
@Mastodon
Here are the "plain English" guidelines:
— Any servers that want to use the Mastodon name and logo in their branding (not domain!) should seek express written permission from Mastodon, which is granted on a case-by-case basis.
— The word Mastodon should never be used in the main part of a server’s domain (a subdomain is allowed).** We will not retroactively enforce this on **servers created before May 13, 2026.**
— Existing servers using the Mastodon name in their domain must include this disclaimer: “This [server/site] is not affiliated with or endorsed by Mastodon GmbH or Mastodon Inc.”
— Any fair use mentions or derivative usage of the Mastodon name (such as mstdn) should include the disclaimer.