X may soon start selling inactive usernames to Verified Organizations starting at $10K, code reveals

Summary

X’s plan to boost revenue by selling off dormant usernames on its service is starting to shape up. According to recent changes found in X’s web application, the company is setting up a “handle inquiry” process that will allow Verified Organizations — companies and other organizations that already have a $1,000 per month X subscription — to bid on abandoned X handles. Those bids will start at $10,000 and may range to over $500,000, according to an FAQ discovered in the web app. The updates were first spotted by reverse engineer Nima Owji, who told TechCrunch that he saw the changes to the web app go live on Wednesday. The website where organizations could acquire a handle is not yet live to the public, however. Image Credits:Nima Owji on X (opens in a new window) The idea of making money by selling handles is something X floated before under Elon Musk’s ownership. The New York Times reported in January 2023 that the company, then still called Twitter, was considering setting up an online auction process for bidding on handles. Musk has also long supported the idea of freeing up X’s namespace for active users, having already purged a number of inactive accounts on the service back in May 2023. In November 2023, Forbes also reported that X was actively soliciting buyers who may be interested in acquiring unused handles, but a formal announcement was not made. X’s documentation on inactive accounts states that the company “cannot release inactive usernames at this time,” though there have been some reports of people buying usernames on X outside of an official process. By allowing companies to officially buy their desired usernames, X could generate another revenue stream outside of subscriptions, ads, and developer access. The move could also encourage other X users to keep posting if they don’t want their handle to become dormant and then go up for sale. Image Credits:Nima Owji on X (opens in a new window) So far, the FAQ details the answers to a handful of common que...