Facebook is suing OnlineNIC for malicious activities, domain fraud

Facebook is suing a domain name registration company OnlineNIC in California court on grounds of "cybersquatting." OnlineNIC has been accused of registering domain names that pretended to be affiliated with Facebook and hiding identity of owners of those names. Facebook fears domain names such as www-facebook-login.com and facebook-mails.com may appear legitimate and confuse people.

"We don’t want people to be deceived, so we track and take action against suspicious and misleading domains, including those registered using privacy/proxy services that allow owners to hide ir identity," said Jessica Romero, Director of Platform Enforcement and Litigation at Facebook.

"OnlineNIC has a history of this behaviour"

Facebook said tens of millions of domain names on web have been registered privately. Romero added: "We proactively report instances of abuse to domain name registrars and privacy/proxy services and often collaborate with m to take down se malicious domains."

"By mentioning our apps and services in domain names, OnlineNIC and ID Shield intended to make m appear legitimate and confuse people. This activity is kwn as cybersquatting and OnlineNIC has a history of this behaviour," Romero added.

Facebook justified action taken against OnlineNIC citing lack of cooperation from domain name registrars and privacy shield services.

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Facebook also said that domain name registrars and proxy services neir investigate r respond to abuse reports, furr enabling bad actors to pursue malicious activities and causing delay to company's efforts to "fight fraud and abuse."

In related news, Facebook is also suing an Israeli software company NSO Group for cyber espion, hacking into 1,400 WhatsApp accounts with help of highly sophisticated spyware. controversy intensified after WhatsApp on Thursday said Indian journalists and human rights activists were among those globally spied upon by unnamed entities using an Israeli spyware Pegasus.

Meanwhile, government has categorically told WhatsApp that it wants platform to bring in a mechanism to enable tracing of originator of messs, a demand that WhatsApp has resisted citing privacy issues. government is also working on tightening rules of social media companies in India that will increase accountability of online networking and platforms.

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