This is false.

Facebook owns their own registrar which is used for their domain.

(Source: I built the domain registrar at Squarespace and know the folks who built it at fbook.)

This should not be on HN, it’s literal spam.

Well, ok, not real news - perhaps changing the title to "Facebook.com is wrongly listed as available for purchase by registrar" would be fitting -

but the fact that it is listed is in itself curious and may give raise to fruitful discussion (as in - why? Folks have already answered here in other comment chains)

Not to mention that it was momentarily amusing to ponder how lucky I am to not be the hypothetical guy responsible for renewing that domain

Looks more like this particular seller relies on DNS to check if a domain is available, instead of ICANN[1].

https://lookup.icann.org/lookup

This is probably the case. Anyone who buys it won't get a successful registration. Probably a refund, if the uniregistry folks are nice enough.

Not really "news", just a faulty check.

This is a domain brokering service. It is not listed for sale. They are saying that for $59 plus commission, they will call up Facebook on your behalf and try to convince them to sell Facebook dot com for a "fair" price.

It doesn't take much of a logical leap to assume that there is effectively no price in this world that Facebook will sell their domain to you for.

So the broker will come back to you and say, "sorry we couldn't convince them to sell it" and you are out $59.

You could technically do the same with

Apple: https://uniregistry.com/buy-domains/apple.com?src=domaintool...

Microsoft: https://uniregistry.com/buy-domains/microsoft.com?src=domain...

For that manner, send me a DM and I will attempt to broker the deal for just $49 and zero commission.

This is a non-story.

Does anyone else feel way too entertained by reading all this stuff about fb being down, all services relying on fb being down, and many services not relying on fb being down but being down due to being DDoS'ed by users trying to find out why fb is down?

I feel for the users of WhatsApp, but everything else...it is Christmas morning over here.

I'll buy it!

wait for me!

Is this legally perilous to buy? Like will facebook somehow figure out a way to take me to court and owe them millions of dollars if I buy it

1. The domain is likely transfer locked and it's a bug in the registrar's availability detection triggered by the DNS outage

2. Even if it wasn't, Facebook could follow the UDRP process to get it back.

If you were holding it to ransom and threatening them with an outage the length of the UDRP process that might be extortion but if you just bought it out of curiousity and it went through and you handed it back it'd probably end up just like the guy who got google domains to "sell" him google.com a few years back

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/guy-bought-google-com-google-...

I think the ICANN dispute division would retake ownership of the domain and give it back to Facebook.

https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/help/dndr/udrp-en

No worries. You would never make it that far. You would not ever take ownership of the domain, so Facebook would never need to "retake ownership".

This is like going to a garage sale and someone tells you that they can broker a deal for the original Mona Lisa for for just $59 plus a 10% commission. But when the broker calls the owner of the Mona Lisa they inform you that its not for sale.

In this case, the registrar is trying to sell its domain brokering services. When you search a domain they either will sell you the domain, or if the domain is not available, they will sell you a service where they try to broker the domain for you. Now of course when they call up Facebook to see if they want to sell the domain, Facebook will just say no and the conversation will be over. You are out $59, which was the flat fee to initiate the brokering.

The phrase "I've got a bridge to sell you" comes to mind... I don't think the buyer would be in any particular legal risk. The right question to ask is "will I be able to get a refund after falling for this obviously fraudulent / mistaken listing."

An organization like facebook doesn't go down in a day. The domain name (and, presumably, associated trademarks) would almost certainly be auctioned off in a highly publicized event.

I never thought I'll see this headline ever.

Uniregistry is transferring all of their customers to Godaddy. This might have something to do with the migration.

Anyone got an extra nickel? I've got about a buck 95.

End of an era

and they appear to be down? (in a survey of two web browsers on very different networks) [ok, duh, I'm up to speed now]

Sweet. Shutdown the dating apps as well and we'll rewin our sanity.

Years from now, we will remember this day.

Elrond : Men? Men are weak. The Blood of Numenor is all but spent, its pride and dignity forgotten. It is because of Men the Ring survives. I was there, Gandalf. I was there three thousand years ago. I was there the day the strength of Men failed.

Elrond : [scene switches to a flashback of Elrond and Isildur] Isildur, hurry, follow me.

Elrond : [voiceover] I led Isildur deep into the fires of Mount Doom, where the Ring was forged, the one place it could be destroyed.

Elrond : Cast it into the fire! Destroy it!

Isildur : No.

[walks away]

Elrond : Isildur!

[cuts back to present]

Elrond : Isildur kept the Ring. It should have ended that day, but evil was allowed to endure. There's no strength left in the world of Men. They're scattered, divided, leaderless.