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Re:Facebook sues Namecheap by ensignavenger on Thursday March 05, 2020 @05:25PM (#22498999)
I am fine with Facebook petitioning a court of competent jurisdiction and following legal due process to stop phishing activity. I am glad that Namecheap is not giving up this information without a proper court order. I am not happy with Facebook making this PR release trying to paint Namecheap in a bad light because they are standing up for privacy. This PR release is completely unnecessary if Facebooks intentions were simply to stop the phishing attacks.
Re:Facebook sues Namecheap by cosmodisk on Thursday March 05, 2020 @05:55PM (#22499240)
While I'm happy that Namecheap won't reveal the names,I'm not happy that these kind of website names can not just be registered but also kept running for years.
Re:Facebook sues Namecheap by dylan604 on Thursday March 05, 2020 @06:24PM (#22499496)
Again, that's how it's supposed work though. If I pay for 10 years for my domain name, I don't want it to stop working because evilCorp makes a request to take it over (for whatever reason). If I am ruining the internet with a nefarious use of my domain, then it should be easy enough to prove to a valid court, and then there should be a legit way to take over control. It shouldn't be impossible, but it shouldn't be a cake walk either.
Re:Facebook sues Namecheap by cortesoft on Thursday March 05, 2020 @08:53PM (#22500375)
A court from what country?
Re:Facebook sues Namecheap by roblabla on Thursday March 05, 2020 @09:49PM (#22500615)
Whichever country the registrar associated with that domain is currently in?
Re:Facebook sues Namecheap by Avamander on Thursday March 05, 2020 @09:34PM (#22500553)
Indeed, it's a difficult question. But we should rather be asking, why isn't there better cooperation to catch cyber-criminals across borders?
Re:Facebook sues Namecheap by dylan604 on Thursday March 05, 2020 @11:15PM (#22500940)
Maybe because some governments are directly involved in the cyber crime?
Re:Facebook sues Namecheap by notRobot on Friday March 06, 2020 @01:05AM (#22501329)
Some? More like basically all.
Re:Facebook sues Namecheap by pc86 on Friday March 06, 2020 @10:38AM (#22504374)
What's a crime in my country is not necessarily a crime in yours. And international law without extradition backing it is at best a suggestion.
Re:Facebook sues Namecheap by Avamander on Saturday March 07, 2020 @01:09PM (#22512991)
Absolutely, especially in terms of copyright and liability (of open computer systems, e.g. Germany's open WiFi nonsense).

But in some cases good enough proof of unauthorised compromise of computer systems can be collected, in those cases, why isn't there any cooperation? E.g. botnet makers.

Re:Facebook sues Namecheap by libria on Thursday March 05, 2020 @06:26PM (#22499510)
What type of heuristic can capture "these kind of website names"? There are too many possibilities.

Some companies have registered misspellings and openly hostile domain names similar to their trademark, but it's hard to consider all permutations e.g. https://bankofamericasucks.com redirects to Coin Wallet.

Re:Facebook sues Namecheap by im3w1l on Thursday March 05, 2020 @06:40PM (#22499632)
Trademark law, as far as I understand, is to prevent customer confusion. Customers should be able to trust their intuition on who made a given product.

Misspellings should be covered. But hostile uses should not.

Re:Facebook sues Namecheap by rswail on Friday March 06, 2020 @02:03AM (#22501538)
Please define "hostile uses" in a way that can be interpreted by law enforcement and the courts.

If I register "facebook-sucks.com" and put a disclaimer that facebook is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc etc etc then I'm not attempting to confuse customers of facebook (btw, do "users" of facebook = "customers" of facebook?).

Therefore there is no trademark infringement and no cause for me to cease and desist.

That's different to registering "faceb00k.com" and trying to pass my site off as being facebook. That's exactly what trademark rights are there to protect. It's not the registering of the domain that is the infringement, it's the attempt to pass off my site as being facebook's. In that case, a court can order me to take down my content, and if "me" is not identifiable, then they can order my hosting provider to do the same.

Facebook itself has numerous different domains registered and its not known that some of them are facebook's registrations.

Re:Facebook sues Namecheap by saagarjha on Thursday March 05, 2020 @07:18PM (#22499879)
What goes under “hostile uses”? Would people be confused if I made “facebook-sucks.com”? Because if you let something like this through, Facebook has an incentive to go after things like that…
Re:Facebook sues Namecheap by codyogden on Friday March 06, 2020 @06:07AM (#22502663)
I did a bit of research on this when I started killedbygoogle.com . It’s fine to use a trademark when it is being used for criticism, parody, or other creative work. It’s not okay to use for impersonation, fraud, or other commercial purposes that mislead consumers to believe an endorsement or association with the trademark’s owner.
Re:Facebook sues Namecheap by zoonosis on Friday March 06, 2020 @09:07AM (#22503623)
Trademark law is to prevent "damage" to brands, not protect customers. If a system was in place to protect the customers, it would be the customers who were deceived that sue and receive compensation, not the company owning the trademark.
Re:Facebook sues Namecheap by pc86 on Friday March 06, 2020 @10:36AM (#22504359)
> This PR release is completely unnecessary if Facebooks intentions were simply to stop the phishing attacks.

That's not their goal at all (obviously).

This is at best tangentially related, but I once had a business model where I asked people to send me a friend request on Facebook. Rather than give them the FB URL directly, I registered [name]onfacebook.com and just had that on the card they received. All the domain did was redirect to my profile. No interstitial, the URL was replaced on redirect, literally just so I could say "[name] on facebook dot com" and have be easy to remember.

Less than a week later I received a nastygram from FB legal about protecting their copyright and that they expected me to shut the domain down immediately.

Re:Facebook sues Namecheap by GuB-42 on Friday March 06, 2020 @06:32AM (#22502786)
Judging by the comments here, they are doing good publicity for Namecheap.

I expect the people who post on HN to be representative of people who buy domain names. So while it may be bad publicity for the general public, it doesn't really matter if potential customers see it as a good thing.