If you are a Twitter user you may have encountered some of the many impersonator accounts - Twitter identities pretending to be someone they are not - usually a famous artist, athlete, public official or agency.

Although often highly amusing for those on the sidelines, this phenomenon can also cause confusion, damage brands and lead to lengthy court cases.

As impersonation violates Twitter's Terms of Service they tend to suspend, delete or transfer control of such accounts when notified of the issue. Furthermore, on Saturday, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone announced on the company blog that they will be 'experimenting' with a beta version of account verification.

Beginnig with a small set of high risk accounts they hope to expand verification in the future, thus providing an easy way to see if you are actually following who you think you are.

In the meantime, if you are unsure of the legitimacy of a Twitter account, check to see if the Twitter link on a brand's website correlates with the Twitter feed.

For more details visit the Twitter Blog.