Facebook said Thursday that it’s suing Namecheap and Whoisguard for providing website addresses that impersonate the social network and can be used for frauds and scams.
According to Facebook, the latter registered 45 domains that were made explicitly to confuse people into thinking they were affiliated with its app and products. Some of the domains Whoisguard allowed include instagrambusinesshelp.com and whatsappdownload.site.
Facebook notes it sent multiple notices to Whoisguard between October 2018 and February 2020, asking it to share information about the domains. Despite those requests, the company didn’t cooperate. “Our goal is to create consequences for those who seek to do harm and we will continue to take legal action to protect people from domain name fraud and abuse,” Facebook said.
The lawsuit, filed in Arizona, also accuses Namecheap of trademark infringement. It alleges that Namecheap’s service Whoisguard registered or used 45 domain names that could deceive people into thinking they’re associated with Facebook. The social network alleges that Whoisguard declined to cooperate after Facebook asked for more information about these names. Facebook said it sent notices to Whoisguard between October 2018 and February 2020.
“We don’t want people to be deceived by these web addresses, so we’ve taken legal action,” Christen Dubois said in the blog post.
