In an exciting turn of events, Facebook is now the one filing a lawsuit. According to the copyright lawsuit in question, the social media giant has blamed two domain hosts (OnlineNIC and ID Shield) for trademark infringement and cybersquatting.
According to Cnet, the lawsuit was filed in the US District Court of the Northern District of California. In other words, Facebook wants to strike down sites that offer phishing and hacking tools against it e.g. HackingFacebook.net. Moreover, these sites are registered with the above mentioned domain hosts.
Facebook claimed in the court documents that it issued multiple requests to the accused parties to take down such sites.
Facebook isn’t the first company to file such a lawsuit. Back in March, Microsoft said that it struck down 99 websites run by hackers from Middle East for phishing purposes. Like Facebook, Microsoft also based its concerns on cybersquatting.
A Facebook spokesperson said that people rely on the company to safeguard the integrity of its services. Therefore, creation of web addresses that pretend to be associated with the social media giant or any of the apps and services it owns is intolerable for the company.
Facebook mentioned around 20 websites in the lawsuit. These sites are accused of using the company’s name as well as images, mostly for unethical reasons. “HackSomeonesFacebook.com” and “BuyInstagramFans.com” are two of such sites.
Additionally, the URLs hosted by many of these sites are designed in a way so that they resemble the official URLs of Facebook and Instagram. This causes people to enter their personal information and thus become victims of a phishing attack. One such particular website has “m-facebook-login.com” as its URL. Not only that but this website was also designed like a standard login page of Facebook.
The court records state that the accused web hosts had ignored Facebook’s takedown requests at multiple occasions. The social media giant also claims that it issued 5 or more notices to ID Shield to reveal the owners of “facebook-login.com” and other similar websites.
Facebook is demanding the web hosts to pay around $2 million ($100,000 per each domain name) for damages. As of yet, OnlineNIC and ID Shield haven’t issued a response.
Photo: AP
Read next: Facebook Sues Israeli Firm for Spreading Spyware Via WhatsApp
According to Cnet, the lawsuit was filed in the US District Court of the Northern District of California. In other words, Facebook wants to strike down sites that offer phishing and hacking tools against it e.g. HackingFacebook.net. Moreover, these sites are registered with the above mentioned domain hosts.
Facebook claimed in the court documents that it issued multiple requests to the accused parties to take down such sites.
Facebook isn’t the first company to file such a lawsuit. Back in March, Microsoft said that it struck down 99 websites run by hackers from Middle East for phishing purposes. Like Facebook, Microsoft also based its concerns on cybersquatting.
A Facebook spokesperson said that people rely on the company to safeguard the integrity of its services. Therefore, creation of web addresses that pretend to be associated with the social media giant or any of the apps and services it owns is intolerable for the company.
Facebook mentioned around 20 websites in the lawsuit. These sites are accused of using the company’s name as well as images, mostly for unethical reasons. “HackSomeonesFacebook.com” and “BuyInstagramFans.com” are two of such sites.
Additionally, the URLs hosted by many of these sites are designed in a way so that they resemble the official URLs of Facebook and Instagram. This causes people to enter their personal information and thus become victims of a phishing attack. One such particular website has “m-facebook-login.com” as its URL. Not only that but this website was also designed like a standard login page of Facebook.
The court records state that the accused web hosts had ignored Facebook’s takedown requests at multiple occasions. The social media giant also claims that it issued 5 or more notices to ID Shield to reveal the owners of “facebook-login.com” and other similar websites.
Facebook is demanding the web hosts to pay around $2 million ($100,000 per each domain name) for damages. As of yet, OnlineNIC and ID Shield haven’t issued a response.
Photo: AP
Read next: Facebook Sues Israeli Firm for Spreading Spyware Via WhatsApp
