Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics is at the centre of a dispute after a prominent US vlogger appeared to lose his YouTube address to the company overnight.
Matthew Lush, who has been registered under the username Lush since 2005 and has 933,719 subscribers to his channel, was previously attached to the address youtube.com/Lush. However, when a user enters this address into their browser now, they are automatically redirected to Lush cosmetics’ YouTube page – an action Matthew Lush did not give consent to.
Speaking to Cosmetics Business, Matthew Lush said: "Neither Google or Lush Cosmetics wants to discuss further. They are more than happy with their decision."
Matthew Lush says Lush and Google don't want to discuss the situation further
The redirection is apparently down to a Google algorithm, which decides which address Lush Cosmetics was given based on data it collected from YouTube, Google+, its own search engine and other sources, a BBC report noted.
Lush Cosmetics reportedly told the BBC it had not requested the change but would not say if it would give the address back. It told Cosmetics Business it could not comment on the matter as it did not initiate the situation.
Backing Matthew Lush, a petition has been set up on change.org directed at YouTube, called Give Matthew Lush his Lush URL Back. So far the petition has received 9,000 supporters. The page states: “Matthew has owned the Lush URL for almost ten years, and has almost 1,000,000 subscribers. He has worked too hard on that channel and URL to just have it ripped away from him. It’s more than just a URL to him and his fans. It’s part of who he is.”
Lush has 90,853 subscribers on its YouTube channel
Similarly, Matthew Lush fans have taken to social media to express their feelings, with the hashtag #GIVELUSHBACK circulating among supporters.
On 19 June, Matthew Lush tweeted: “So @YouTube gave the http://YouTube.com/Lush URL to @lushcosmetics, even though I’ve owned it for ten years. Big business wins again”.
