A British trucking company is thinking about suing Donald Trump's new social media venture after it appears they appeared to use the company's logo as their own. Truth Social launched in the app store on Monday, but quickly crashed, despite only a few hundred downloads over 12 hours.
BusinessInsider reported Tuesday that the logo used in the Apple App Store looks nearly identical to the logo for British "Fleet Telematics & Fuel Efficiency" company named Trailar, which has been using it as part of their own branding since 2019.
The image is the capital letter "T" on a blue background with a stripe on the left side of the top of the letter. In the Trump version, his designers placed a small green box to the right. They also used a slightly different color of violet as the background.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA \n\nOne of these is the icon for Trump's "truth social" site the other is the icon for a British "Fleet Telematics & Fuel Efficiency" company that has used it since at least 2019\nhttps://www.facebook.com/solartrailar/photos/a.297301290862501/657538928172067/\u00a0\u2026\n\nhttps://apps.apple.com/us/app/truth-social/id1586018825\u00a0\u2026pic.twitter.com/aQssmef17x— z3dster (@z3dster) 1645421824
According to Trailar marketing manager Matthew Summers, "We are now seeking legal advice to understand next steps and options available to protect our brand."
The company sent out their own tweet mocking the Trump copy.
Great to see Donald Trump supporting a growing sustainability business! Maybe ask next time? \n\n@AldiUK Don't happen to have the number for your legal team on you? \n\n@DonaldJTrumpJr @IvankaTrump @MELANIATRUMP #DonaldTrumphttps://twitter.com/z3dster/status/1495633651698221058\u00a0\u2026— TRAILAR (@TRAILAR) 1645453142
The Aldi comment is a reference to a copyright issue last year when British retailer Marks & Spencer claimed that Aldi's "Cuthbert the Caterpillar" cake copied their "Colin the Caterpillar" cake. They reached a settlement over it. M&S has sold over 15 million of the chocolate sponge critter cakes since its creation in 1990.