itch.io says it was removed by Funko

itch.io spent hours completely offline on Sunday evening – and the indie games marketplace blamed an automated takedown generated on behalf of Funko, maker of the Funko Pop collectible figures.

“I’m not kidding, @itchio has been removed by @OriginalFunko,” the site said posted on X early Monday morning. itch.io said Funko uses “some kind of bogus ‘AI Powered’ brand protection software” that generated a “fake phishing report” about the itch.io site.

This report was sent to itch.io’s domain registrar iwantmyname, which went ahead and disabled the site. This action was also likely taken by an “automated system,” itch.io said.

itch.io claimed to have removed the “disputed page” that triggered the phishing report immediately after receiving the takedown request, but said no one at iwantmyname appeared to have read the email confirming the page’s removal.

Contacted for comment by Polygon, a representative of iwantmyname said: “The domain name was restored earlier today after the registrant finally responded to our report and took appropriate action to resolve the issue.” At the time iwantmyname’s response was sent, itch.io appeared to have been online for less than 40 minutes.

itch.io came back online between 5 and 6 a.m. EST on Monday morning, after at least three hours during which it was completely offline for most users, including both players and developers using the open platform. Games and other products already purchased from itch.io can be used without any problems, but the store’s outage will have been a significant problem for creators using it for distribution.

The software allegedly used by Funko that took down the itch.io site was made by a company called BrandShield. BrandShield describes itself as an “AI-powered online anti-counterfeiting solution” that checks for “trademark infringements, phishing attempts, brand abuse and counterfeit activity.”

Polygon has reached out to itch.io and Funko for comment.