Indie games site Itch.io temporarily taken down by Funko, due to 'AI-powered' brand protection company that 'created some bogus phishing report'

Itch.io, a website used to host a heap of games—primarily self-published indie projects—was taken down briefly this morning (or over the weekend, depending on time zones) thanks to, uh, Funko of Funko Pop infamy. I'm about as confused as you, and the site's creator Leafo, are.

As posted to both Bluesky and X, the site was "taken down by Funko of 'Funko Pop' because they use some trash 'AI Powered' Brand Protection Software called Brand Shield that created some bogus Phishing report to our registrar, iwantmyname, who ignored our response and just disabled the domain."

Itch.io later clarified that it "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 [in] to disable the domain since no one read our confirmation of removal."

If you're curious about BrandShield, it's an AI-powered "solution" to things like phishing attempts, fraudulent websites and, with relevance to this specific case, "brand protection". While it's borderline impossible to pierce through the thick fog of business-speak (the world "holistic" is thrown around a bunch) to find a promise that BrandShield actually has people who know what they're doing vetting these takedown requests, the site's page on brand protection describes the specifics of its zealotry.

"You will expose your brand to online attacks if you only protect your registered domain. Make sure to also protect yourself from external digital threats and monitor these important elements," the site states, before listing "visuals of both company logos and product images" and "written and recorded content" as risk factors.

As for the page in question, Itch.io's creator breaks it down in a thread on Hacker News: "From what I can tell, some person made a fan page for an existing Funko Pop video game (Funko Fusion), with links to the official site and screenshots of the game. The BrandShield software is probably instructed to eradicate all 'unauthorized' use of their trademark, so they sent reports independently to our host and registrar claiming there was 'fraud and phishing' going on, likely to cause escalation instead of doing the expected DMCA/cease-and-desist."

Leafo states they'd received reports from their host to take the page down, and had done so days in advance: "I expressed my disappointment in my responses to both of them but told them I had removed the page and disabled the account. Linode confirmed and closed the case. iwantmyname never responded. … I noticed that the domain status had been set to 'serverHold' on iwantmyname's domain panel. We have no other abuse reports from iwantmyname other than this one."

Taking all of this at face value (I have reached out to Funko for comment, and will update this article if I receive a response) this really does seem like a domino-effect snafu powered by AI and, well, incompetence. Automated technology overreacted, as it tends to do, while Itch.io's domain host dragged its feet. As a result, one of the biggest hosts of indie games lost out on hours of potential revenue—which has a knock-on effect to the developers using the website to peddle their virtual wares. It looks like it's mostly been resolved, with Itch.io back online at the time of writing. But phew, at least Funko's brand is protected—that was a close call, everybody.