The open indie games marketplace itch.io has been shut down by Funko. The company’s AI-powered IP protection software Brandshield generated what itch.io describes as “a fake phishing report to our registrar iwantmyname.” The company announced the outage on its social media platforms, including X.

I’m not kidding you, @itchio was dismantled by @OriginalFunko because they use some crap brand protection software called “AI-powered” brand protection software @BrandShieldltd This sent a fake phishing report to our registrar. @iwantmynamewho ignored our reply and simply deactivated the domain

– itch.io (@itchio) December 9, 2024

Here is a full transcript of the tweet thread:

I kid you not, @itchio was removed from @OriginalFunko because they use some stupid “AI-powered” brand protection software called @BrandShieldltd that created a fake phishing report to our registrar @iwantmyname, who ignored our response and simply disabled it has domain

I hope you all have a lovely Sunday evening

For the sake of transparency, we deleted the controversial page immediately upon receipt of the notice, as such things are not worth fighting against. Regardless, our registrar’s automated system likely deactivated the domain because no one read our removal confirmation.

itch.io, in a response to They seemed to have done everything you would expect from such a large platform, and hopefully that will become clearer when a human takes a look. For now, you can follow itch.io on X for more updates.