This is a wonderful admission by Facebook. So any one of the millions of companies who have had their copyrights or trademarks infringed by fraudulent Chinese advertisers on Instagram and Facebook should now be given FULL access to all advertisers personal details on Facebook including the complete historic library of ads that have ever run on Facebook since, by their own argument, “You don’t know who to sue until you’ve got the Whois information,”

No. They’re arguing anyone with a registered trademark should have full access to everything, with no infringement required.

They’re also arguing a restriction to advertisers would be an undue burden.

I agree. I also think getting a judge to sign off on that would be unduly burdensome.

Just holding the domain, without conducting business under that name, shouldn't be enough to be considered "infringing" in the mark. So this argument isn't valid under any means.

If someone has a business (offering goods and services in exchange for money) using an infringing trademark, then it should be possible to contact them through the same means that customers do to buy their product or service. No need for the "whois" data.

No if you are filing a lawsuit you can’t just “contact them” the same way a customer can.

You have to serve them pursuant to the law, which generally for businesses means serving their registered agent. In order to find the registered agent you will need the legal name of the business running the infringing website (you will need the state of incorporation as well).

Right. But to be a LLC, C Corporation, or S Corporation I have to have a "registered agent" listed with the State. There's no requirement that the domain owner's contact be a "registered agent." In fact, the person who owns the domain may be different from the business using it.

And while the Registered Agent is the correct legal way to serve a notice, if a business accepts and acknowledges it via another route, that's fine, too.

> There's no requirement that the domain owner's contact be a "registered agent." In fact, the person who owns the domain may be different from the business using it.

No, but if the domain itself is serving content then the domain owner is, and should be, party to any complaints related to the domain. Even if the domain owner isn't the "registered agent" of the business, they assuredly must know how to contact the registered agent and should have "skin in the game", so to speak, for being a proxy. Not knowing or being able to contact the business owner is, I would argue, grounds for fraud and misrepresentation.

I don't think CloudFlare knows who my registered agent is. But I am a paid customer of theirs and they cache my website and serve my DNS.

Do they own your domain? Or just serve it. Were taking about domain owners not hosts

CloudFlare responds to fraud claims and legal action.

So Facebook should be considered a proxy for frauds delivered through Facebook.

I agree .

They certainly should be...but they lobbied for laws that say they aren’t liable.

That is why there is a major effort to repeal those laws.

> There's no requirement that the domain owner's contact be a "registered agent."

That’s not what I said, or the point.

Example: If I launch fortran77.com and am infringing on your registered trademark, step 1 is for you to find the registered owner of the domain. Once you have that then you can find the business owners RA.

You can’t skip the step of identifying the owner of the infringing website to get to the RA. Assuming you are right and the infringing business would waive service of process (they won’t of course) but if they did you still need to identify the owner of the site to get request waiver of process.

Yes, but I said holding the domain without conducting business under that name.

Not sure if i’m picking up what you’re putting down.

I’m guessing maybe you register mymark.com, I get the Whois record and it’s not your legit business info but some made up business name and fake contact info.

Well if that’s the case, either icann will have some rule prohibiting registrations with fake info and maybe I could get the domain transferred once they confirm your info is fake or I could still file suit against the made up business and get my default/court order and then get icann to turn it over on that basis. But it’s all about that step 1, uncovering the domain owner (real or fake). Possibly I could subpoena the registrar and get your real info and/or payment info. Then I’d have to amend my complaint to add you (the legit business) and still have to serve your RA.

If I pay for my identity to be masked, would I not be entitle to a refund if my identity was revealed by the same vendor?

Do you really want your $10 (or however much cloaking cost you), rather than the right to sue for damages (and that right being what keeps the service honest and on your side?)

I have a great business: pay me $100 to guarantee the gender of your not-yet conceived child. If you didn't get what you asked for, I'll refund your $100. How does that sound?

morally maybe, but legally I'd guess they have provisions in whatever ToS you agreed to that mean not.

I agree with your position but that last sentence is a bit redundant.

Not disagreeing with you, but "criminals" is not a Boolean variable when you have power over those who determine who is and isn't a criminal.

Facebook (and other big social media) has a lot of power over those who define and enforce the laws, both within the bounds of the existing laws, and within a grey area where they'd be technically breaking the law, but nobody would want to enforce said law on them due to potential repercussions (Facebook could instantly shut down a lot of politicians' careers by just airing their dirty laundry, on which Facebook has a lot of visibility due to its omnipresence).

Those who make the laws rely on Facebook to succeed in their own personal interests (getting elected, which means money & power).

The problem here isn't just Facebook, it's the people that are supposed to be drafting & enforcing laws in the best interests of society are instead doing so to pursue their own personal interests instead. Facebook is just coming along for a free ride - can't really blame them.

I think you might have missed it, I was simply calling facebook a bunch of criminals.

Yep, I understood that, just wanted to add my (maybe unnecessary) 2 cents.

So if cyanide gets into your bloodstream we will blame Your body not the poison ?

I just wanted to clarify that this comment was meant to illustrate a thing... ONLY

nothing more. It was not worded in good taste.