4 ms·

Ask HN: Facebook is threatening me for owning facebookrebrand.com

7 points by joshruby16 5y ago

Any advice? They say that if I sell it, they can sue me for 100K.

plasma 5y ago
My only advice would be not to take advice from opposing council; seek your own legal advice from lawyers hired by you.
- christophilus 5y ago
  This is the canonical answer. Lawyer up, unfortunately.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
1970-01-01 5y ago
Sell their threatening letter as an NFT for 100K.
- 1970-01-01 5y ago
  As some of you may know, part of my quip isn't a joke and has truth to it. Maybe you could follow the Snowden NFT and put a Facebook icon around the legal text: https://foundation.app/@Snowden/~/24437 https://foundation.app/@Snowden/~/24437
bhartzer 5y ago
Certainly, I'm not a domain attorney. However, as someone who runs a domain name protection company, my advice is to one of two things: - Log into your domain registrar and delete the domain in your account. That will make it available for registration again, giving FB a chance to register it. - Respond to them and work with them to transfer the domain to them. This is clearly, undoubtedly a trademark domain. Any UDRP or lawsuit that is filed would most likely not result in your favor. It's not worth your time, hassle, and money to continue to own that particular domain. I'd put your money into a good generic keyword rich domain name instead. That's my personal opinion. But if you DO decide to seek the advice of counsel, whatever you do ONLY deal with a qualified domain name attorney. Domain name legal issues require specialized knowledge. Unfortunately there are IP lawyers and others that will give you advice but don't necessarily have direct experience dealing with domain names.
- joshruby16 5y ago
  Why would this be an infringement if no one would get confused between this site and facebook itself? Actually, I just looked into this a bit. It seems like they just do this to anyone who owns a domain that has "facebook" in it. Don't think that they're actually that serious - probably a bot.
Trias11 5y ago
MSFT bullied MikeRoweSoft.com owner into submission. So unless you have $1M stacked for legal fees, give it up. However their letter essentially means they afraid that you'll transfer it to more legally powerful chest and that could cause more trouble for them down the road - with someone they can't bully as easily. This domain name is worthless by definition, so i suggest to give it up. Possibly even consulting with lawyer how to "properly" give it up to avoid issues. You're stepped into FB legal mafia land and might need to thread carefully to escape it clean and whole.
JustARandomGuy 5y ago
Is there context for this threat? Did you offer to sell it on a marketplace or host offensive/brand-damaging information?
rolph 5y ago
sell it for 250,000
readonthegoapp 5y ago
Tell them to sue you Publish everything Raise funds Facebook needs to die for democracy to live ...i call bs. publish their email to you.
- joshruby16 5y ago
  https://paste.pics/da24826c99b09da6feaed12083c31186 https://paste.pics/da24826c99b09da6feaed12083c31186
cblconfederate 5y ago
why sell it? Make a page where people vote what will be the new name of facebook. Send it to random idiots on facebook, they 'll share it everywhere. $profit
- joshruby16 5y ago
  Good idea! Can you help? i'll split the $ with you. it's shleiby at gmail
gradschool 5y ago
Lots of funny suggestions here. I used to have facebooksleaze.com [1], on which I posted links and a money quote from news articles about facebook. Within about two years it was DoS'd by someone who knew how to do it without disturbing a couple of other sites hosted on the same server and who didn't exploit anything else on it. Is there a way you can set up a honeypot and sue the attacker for a billion dollars? [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20150225074006/http://facebooksleaze.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150225074006/http://facebooksl...

7 points by joshruby16 5y ago

Any advice? They say that if I sell it, they can sue me for 100K.

plasma 5y ago

My only advice would be not to take advice from opposing council; seek your own legal advice from lawyers hired by you.

christophilus 5y ago
This is the canonical answer. Lawyer up, unfortunately.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

1970-01-01 5y ago

Sell their threatening letter as an NFT for 100K.

1970-01-01 5y ago
As some of you may know, part of my quip isn't a joke and has truth to it. Maybe you could follow the Snowden NFT and put a Facebook icon around the legal text: https://foundation.app/@Snowden/~/24437 https://foundation.app/@Snowden/~/24437

bhartzer 5y ago

Certainly, I'm not a domain attorney. However, as someone who runs a domain name protection company, my advice is to one of two things: - Log into your domain registrar and delete the domain in your account. That will make it available for registration again, giving FB a chance to register it. - Respond to them and work with them to transfer the domain to them. This is clearly, undoubtedly a trademark domain. Any UDRP or lawsuit that is filed would most likely not result in your favor. It's not worth your time, hassle, and money to continue to own that particular domain. I'd put your money into a good generic keyword rich domain name instead. That's my personal opinion. But if you DO decide to seek the advice of counsel, whatever you do ONLY deal with a qualified domain name attorney. Domain name legal issues require specialized knowledge. Unfortunately there are IP lawyers and others that will give you advice but don't necessarily have direct experience dealing with domain names.

joshruby16 5y ago
Why would this be an infringement if no one would get confused between this site and facebook itself? Actually, I just looked into this a bit. It seems like they just do this to anyone who owns a domain that has "facebook" in it. Don't think that they're actually that serious - probably a bot.

Trias11 5y ago

MSFT bullied MikeRoweSoft.com owner into submission. So unless you have $1M stacked for legal fees, give it up. However their letter essentially means they afraid that you'll transfer it to more legally powerful chest and that could cause more trouble for them down the road - with someone they can't bully as easily. This domain name is worthless by definition, so i suggest to give it up. Possibly even consulting with lawyer how to "properly" give it up to avoid issues. You're stepped into FB legal mafia land and might need to thread carefully to escape it clean and whole.

JustARandomGuy 5y ago

Is there context for this threat? Did you offer to sell it on a marketplace or host offensive/brand-damaging information?

rolph 5y ago

sell it for 250,000

readonthegoapp 5y ago

Tell them to sue you Publish everything Raise funds Facebook needs to die for democracy to live ...i call bs. publish their email to you.

joshruby16 5y ago
https://paste.pics/da24826c99b09da6feaed12083c31186 https://paste.pics/da24826c99b09da6feaed12083c31186

cblconfederate 5y ago

why sell it? Make a page where people vote what will be the new name of facebook. Send it to random idiots on facebook, they 'll share it everywhere. $profit

joshruby16 5y ago
Good idea! Can you help? i'll split the $ with you. it's shleiby at gmail

gradschool 5y ago

Lots of funny suggestions here. I used to have facebooksleaze.com [1], on which I posted links and a money quote from news articles about facebook. Within about two years it was DoS'd by someone who knew how to do it without disturbing a couple of other sites hosted on the same server and who didn't exploit anything else on it. Is there a way you can set up a honeypot and sue the attacker for a billion dollars? [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20150225074006/http://facebooksleaze.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150225074006/http://facebooksl...