Indie game store Itch.io went offline early Monday morning due to a reported phishing scam. The site’s servers remained online, but the domain pointed to IP addresses not owned by Itch.io, making it inaccessible.
Itch.io blames pop culture company Funko for the issue, claiming their AI-powered Brand Protection Software called Brand Shield created a bogus report that led to the outage. However, Brand Shield CEO Yoav Leyen disputed this, stating that they only submitted a takedown request for a specific URL and not the entire subdomain.
The domain issues arose just days after Itch.io introduced its custom domain name option for Bluesky accounts. Users who switched to custom URLs encountered an “invalid handle” error on Bluesky until the main site came back online.
Brand Shield emphasizes its role in detecting potential threats and providing analysis, while encouraging platforms to implement stronger self-regulation systems to prevent similar issues. The site has since returned to service, with Itch.io apologizing for the inconvenience caused.
Source: https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/9/24316882/itch-io-offline-domain-registration-funko-report