itch.io spent hours utterly offline on Sunday evening — and the indie recreation market positioned the blame on an automatic takedown generated on behalf of Funko, maker of the Funko Pop collectable collectible figurines.
“I child you not, @itchio has been taken down by @OriginalFunko,” the location posted to X within the early hours of Monday morning. itch.io mentioned Funko makes use of “some trash ‘AI Powered’ Model Safety Software program” that generated a “bogus Phishing report” concerning the itch.io website.
This report was despatched to itch.io’s area registrar iwantmyname, which went forward and disabled the location. This motion was additionally doubtless taken by an “automated system,” itch.io mentioned.
itch.io claimed to have taken down the “disputed web page” that triggered the phishing report instantly on receiving the takedown discover, however mentioned no-one at iwantmyname appeared to have learn the e-mail confirming the web page’s removing.
Contacted for remark by epicgamejourney, an iwantmyname consultant mentioned, “The area identify was already reinstated earlier at this time after the registrant lastly responded to our discover and took acceptable motion to resolve the difficulty.” On the time iwantmyname’s reply was despatched, itch.io appeared to have been again on-line for lower than 40 minutes.
itch.io got here again on-line between 5 and 6 a.m. EST on Monday morning, after not less than three hours throughout which it was utterly offline for many customers, together with each gamers and builders who use the open platform. Video games and different merchandise already purchased from itch.io may very well be used with out concern, however the storefront outage may have been a major downside for creators who use it for distribution.
The software program allegedly utilized by Funko that took the itch.io website down is made by an organization known as BrandShield. BrandShield describes itself as an “AI-powered on-line anti-counterfeiting resolution” that screens for “trademark infringements, phishing makes an attempt, model abuse, and counterfeit exercise.”
epicgamejourney has requested itch.io and Funko for remark.
