Update on March 15, 2022 at 2:00PM PT:
See below for the Joint Public Statement released by the parties:
Meta Platforms, Inc., Namecheap, Inc. and Whoisguard, Inc. announced today that we have agreed to settle the claims between them in a pending lawsuit following a private mediation between the companies.
Meta and Namecheap confirm our respective commitment to preventing internet abuse, including domain name abuse, trademark abuse, abuse of privacy rights, phishing, malware and fraud in all forms. Namecheap, Inc., Whoisguard, Inc., and Withheld For Privacy ehf are committed to protecting privacy, and they will treat Meta as a trusted notifier to quickly stop infringement and abuse.
Namecheap recognizes our legitimate interest in enforcing our intellectual property rights and protecting our users, and is committed to fight fraud and abuse. Namecheap also will transfer the domain names at issue in the case to Meta.
Namecheap is improving its processes for all DNS abuse and trademark abuse, including for trademark holders to report infringing domain names to stop abusive registration practices. The parties are pleased to have amicably resolved this action, and each will continue to fight abuses and reaffirm their commitment to the internet community as a whole.
Originally published on March 5, 2020 at 9:00AM PT:
This week we filed a lawsuit in Arizona against Namecheap, a domain name registrar, as well as its proxy service, Whoisguard, for registering domain names that aim to deceive people by pretending to be affiliated with Facebook apps. These domain names can trick people into believing they are legitimate and are often used for phishing, fraud and scams.
We regularly scan for domain names and apps that infringe our trademarks to protect people from abuse. We found that Namecheap’s proxy service, Whoisguard, registered or used 45 domain names that impersonated Facebook and our services, such as instagrambusinesshelp.com, facebo0k-login.com and whatsappdownload.site. We sent notices to Whoisguard between October 2018 and February 2020, and despite their obligation to provide information about these infringing domain names, they declined to cooperate.
We don’t want people to be deceived by these web addresses, so we’ve taken legal action. We filed a similar lawsuit in October 2019 against OnlineNIC, another domain registrar, and its proxy service. 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.