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Question: If what the domain name holders are doing is illegal (presumably phishing for secrets; which is probably against some sort of misdirection or scam law

Question: If what the domain name holders are doing is illegal (presumably phishing for secrets; which is probably against some sort of misdirection or scam laws) why is Facebook doing the suing? Why aren’t police departments or federal investigation units the once asking judges for subpoenas and going after the actual criminals? It feels like an unessisary and possibly harmful step for a non-victim private company to suing another non-criminal private company so they can get these criminals to justice.

bredren 7y ago
It sounds like the fraudulent domains are foremost a trademark infringement. The fact that the domains are used for phishing or to perpetrate criminal acts is a secondary matter that adds gravitas to Facebook's public presentation of why they are suing Namecheap. The infringing parties are those that register the domains using Whoisguard, and Namecheap is a non-party witness to the infringement. So, serving Namecheap a subpoena, and then suing them for compliance after they neglect to respond to the subpoena is apparently a normal method for getting information from an uncooperative non-party witness in a civil legal proceeding. Presumably, once they are successful in their lawsuit and have the names of the individuals responsible for the domain names, they will hand the evidence over to the police for investigation of criminal acts such as wire-fraud etc. https://www.weil.com/~/media/files/pdfs/subpoenas-using-subpoenas-to-obtain-evidence.pdf https://www.weil.com/~/media/files/pdfs/subpoenas-using-subp...
- runarberg 7y ago
  Quite typical that the crime being investigated is a petty trademark infringement, while there are real victims who’s privacy and dignity is violated by these scammers. It indeed disgusts me that as a society of laws we go after violent criminals, not because they violate real victims, but because they infringe on a trademark of a multi-billion dollar company.
michaelt 7y ago
I'm no expert, but as I understand things the cops don't give a shit. Like if you witness someone speeding, or if someone steals your bicycle. They'll take a report if you want, but there are only so many detectives. And these internet crimes need so many special skills and cross jurisdictional lines so easily... We could establish a specialist police unit with the skills and funding levels needed to go after crimes against Facebook. Facebook might even be willing to help with funding and training, and doubtless big copyright holders would also be interested. Personally I don't think that would be a step in the right direction though.
- appleshore 7y ago
  But violent crime is down over the last 30-years, seems to be more cops employed and less petty crime laws being enforced. Doesn’t quite make sense but I often hear this excuse.
  - dependenttypes 7y ago
    They are too busy going after victimless crimes.
  - tialaramex 7y ago
    Are more cops employed? In the UK at least police numbers were cut drastically. One of the many hilarious pledges of the newly elected Tory government of the UK is that they'd hire lots of extra police to fix problems that some might argue were caused by the er... Tory government which had cut police numbers...
  - runarberg 7y ago
    I think we need to start thinking about scammers as violent criminals. Victims of scammers do feel extremely violated after the fact. They loose not only valuables, but also their dignity and their sense of security. Scamming is indeed a violent crime that causes significant harm to the victim. I also get the sense that there is still a lot of victim blaming when it comes to scamming. This also has to change. Victims of scams have not done anything wrong. The criminals that scam other people are of full blame for their crimes, and they need to be brought to justice for their violent behaviour.

bredren 7y ago

It sounds like the fraudulent domains are foremost a trademark infringement. The fact that the domains are used for phishing or to perpetrate criminal acts is a secondary matter that adds gravitas to Facebook's public presentation of why they are suing Namecheap. The infringing parties are those that register the domains using Whoisguard, and Namecheap is a non-party witness to the infringement. So, serving Namecheap a subpoena, and then suing them for compliance after they neglect to respond to the subpoena is apparently a normal method for getting information from an uncooperative non-party witness in a civil legal proceeding. Presumably, once they are successful in their lawsuit and have the names of the individuals responsible for the domain names, they will hand the evidence over to the police for investigation of criminal acts such as wire-fraud etc. https://www.weil.com/~/media/files/pdfs/subpoenas-using-subpoenas-to-obtain-evidence.pdf https://www.weil.com/~/media/files/pdfs/subpoenas-using-subp...

runarberg 7y ago
Quite typical that the crime being investigated is a petty trademark infringement, while there are real victims who’s privacy and dignity is violated by these scammers. It indeed disgusts me that as a society of laws we go after violent criminals, not because they violate real victims, but because they infringe on a trademark of a multi-billion dollar company.

michaelt 7y ago

I'm no expert, but as I understand things the cops don't give a shit. Like if you witness someone speeding, or if someone steals your bicycle. They'll take a report if you want, but there are only so many detectives. And these internet crimes need so many special skills and cross jurisdictional lines so easily... We could establish a specialist police unit with the skills and funding levels needed to go after crimes against Facebook. Facebook might even be willing to help with funding and training, and doubtless big copyright holders would also be interested. Personally I don't think that would be a step in the right direction though.

appleshore 7y ago
But violent crime is down over the last 30-years, seems to be more cops employed and less petty crime laws being enforced. Doesn’t quite make sense but I often hear this excuse.
- dependenttypes 7y ago
  They are too busy going after victimless crimes.
- tialaramex 7y ago
  Are more cops employed? In the UK at least police numbers were cut drastically. One of the many hilarious pledges of the newly elected Tory government of the UK is that they'd hire lots of extra police to fix problems that some might argue were caused by the er... Tory government which had cut police numbers...
- runarberg 7y ago
  I think we need to start thinking about scammers as violent criminals. Victims of scammers do feel extremely violated after the fact. They loose not only valuables, but also their dignity and their sense of security. Scamming is indeed a violent crime that causes significant harm to the victim. I also get the sense that there is still a lot of victim blaming when it comes to scamming. This also has to change. Victims of scams have not done anything wrong. The criminals that scam other people are of full blame for their crimes, and they need to be brought to justice for their violent behaviour.