4 ms·

It’s about there already being a process for this, and not being cool with Facebook using lawyers to do it.

ensignavenger 7y ago
Well, part of the appropriate process may involve lawyers- but they do not appear to be following the process properly, and this PR stunt is absurd.
ipsum2 7y ago
> there already being a process for this It's not clear at all what the process is. Can you elaborate?
- ensignavenger 7y ago
  https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/help/dndr/udrp-en https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/help/dndr/udrp-en
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
tempestn 7y ago
For what it's worth, the problem with that process is that it creates an uneven burden. Any scammer with 10 bucks can create a misleading domain. This happened to us when some scammers created "autostempest.com" to mimic our car search site, autotempest.com. They put fake listings up and scammed many people out of tens of thousands of dollars. Our only legal recourse was a UDRP claim (short of suing namecheap, which would have been even more expensive), but that would have cost about $2000 because you need to go through a registered provider—and these are private companies, which take advantage of this regulatory oligopoly. Now, $2000 would be worth it to shut down a scammer like that, except nothing stops them from simply ignoring the UDRP claim and once their domain is shut down, they can register autotempests.com or something for another 10 bucks. (They actually did end up registering autostempestgroup.com and several others.) On the other hand, if you could simply go to the registrar, show clear evidence of the very obvious infringement, and have them shut down the domain, perhaps it would actually be feasible to put a dent in that kind of scam. I do understand the concern of having a private company like Namecheap be the judge in these matters, but I'm not sure it's as black and white as that. I could see a system working where they do take unilateral action on obvious cases (autostempest, whatsappdownload.com, faceb00k, etc.), but require the formal process for less clear cases.
- ensignavenger 7y ago
  I understand this complaint. But Facebook attacking Namecheap in a public post for doing the right thing is the wrong way to go about changing the system. They should instead petition ICANN and/or their political rulers to change the process.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  So here's the trouble with "it's obvious": http://www.slutsofinstagram.com/ http://www.slutsofinstagram.com/ "Slütsof In Stagram", naturally, what did you expect? See also "Whöresof In Stagrâm" at similar URL. Yes, someone tried to register SlutsOfInstagram.com and WhoresOfInstagram.com and when Facebook/Instagram objected, they turned the sites into something else entirely. The point being that you can't really tell anything from the name. But then you can't really tell anything from the content either, because if there is phishing content the first thing the registrant will claim is that they've been hacked. Which is hardly uncommon in that context. So then you need someone to make a judgement call. Which is what courts are for.
  - tempestn 7y ago
    If there's a combination, it's very obvious. To use my personal example again, the domain was autostempest.com, and they had copied our logo directly, and created a car listings site. It would be trivial to see that we were using the name and logo first. Going to court just wasn't an option. For one thing, we couldn't even identify the people behind these sites without first going to court against namecheap. And after all that effort and expense, it's entirely possible they'd registered the domain with fake info and the effort would have been wasted. Even the UDRP option was not cost effective, because nothing would stop the scammers from opening a new fake domain. What we eventually did that worked was found a "CSIRT" company that would use its private connections to hosting providers to, for a fee, get offending content taken down. So, that's the kind of thing the status quo is incentivizing. Hardly better than if there was a takedown process available through namecheap it seems. That said, you'd certainly want to avoid the situation with Youtube, where the power is swung all the way in the other direction, so creators have almost no recourse when purported rights holders issue a claim.

Well, part of the appropriate process may involve lawyers- but they do not appear to be following the process properly, and this PR stunt is absurd.

ipsum2 7y ago

> there already being a process for this It's not clear at all what the process is. Can you elaborate?

ensignavenger 7y ago
https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/help/dndr/udrp-en https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/help/dndr/udrp-en
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

tempestn 7y ago

For what it's worth, the problem with that process is that it creates an uneven burden. Any scammer with 10 bucks can create a misleading domain. This happened to us when some scammers created "autostempest.com" to mimic our car search site, autotempest.com. They put fake listings up and scammed many people out of tens of thousands of dollars. Our only legal recourse was a UDRP claim (short of suing namecheap, which would have been even more expensive), but that would have cost about $2000 because you need to go through a registered provider—and these are private companies, which take advantage of this regulatory oligopoly. Now, $2000 would be worth it to shut down a scammer like that, except nothing stops them from simply ignoring the UDRP claim and once their domain is shut down, they can register autotempests.com or something for another 10 bucks. (They actually did end up registering autostempestgroup.com and several others.) On the other hand, if you could simply go to the registrar, show clear evidence of the very obvious infringement, and have them shut down the domain, perhaps it would actually be feasible to put a dent in that kind of scam. I do understand the concern of having a private company like Namecheap be the judge in these matters, but I'm not sure it's as black and white as that. I could see a system working where they do take unilateral action on obvious cases (autostempest, whatsappdownload.com, faceb00k, etc.), but require the formal process for less clear cases.

ensignavenger 7y ago
I understand this complaint. But Facebook attacking Namecheap in a public post for doing the right thing is the wrong way to go about changing the system. They should instead petition ICANN and/or their political rulers to change the process.
AnthonyMouse 7y ago
So here's the trouble with "it's obvious": http://www.slutsofinstagram.com/ http://www.slutsofinstagram.com/ "Slütsof In Stagram", naturally, what did you expect? See also "Whöresof In Stagrâm" at similar URL. Yes, someone tried to register SlutsOfInstagram.com and WhoresOfInstagram.com and when Facebook/Instagram objected, they turned the sites into something else entirely. The point being that you can't really tell anything from the name. But then you can't really tell anything from the content either, because if there is phishing content the first thing the registrant will claim is that they've been hacked. Which is hardly uncommon in that context. So then you need someone to make a judgement call. Which is what courts are for.
- tempestn 7y ago
  If there's a combination, it's very obvious. To use my personal example again, the domain was autostempest.com, and they had copied our logo directly, and created a car listings site. It would be trivial to see that we were using the name and logo first. Going to court just wasn't an option. For one thing, we couldn't even identify the people behind these sites without first going to court against namecheap. And after all that effort and expense, it's entirely possible they'd registered the domain with fake info and the effort would have been wasted. Even the UDRP option was not cost effective, because nothing would stop the scammers from opening a new fake domain. What we eventually did that worked was found a "CSIRT" company that would use its private connections to hosting providers to, for a fee, get offending content taken down. So, that's the kind of thing the status quo is incentivizing. Hardly better than if there was a takedown process available through namecheap it seems. That said, you'd certainly want to avoid the situation with Youtube, where the power is swung all the way in the other direction, so creators have almost no recourse when purported rights holders issue a claim.