Several companies or services create fake Facebook application domains , with the aim of luring users into clicking on malicious links.
Facebook has taken legal action against such companies many times.
In the most recent case, Facebook targeted an Indian domain provider, Compsys Domain Solutions Private Ltd , and filed a lawsuit in Virginia against 12 of its domains.
As said , the domains were “designed to deceive people by impersonating our family of apps.” Some of the domains use names like facebook-verify-inc.com, instagramhjack.com , and videocall-whatsapp.com, which refer to well-known apps from the company.
As Christen Dubois, IP Litigation Director at Facebook, stated, the company took this action "in order to prevent fraud and stop the malicious use of our companies and products."
Dubois also said that they tried to contact the Indian company to discuss changing the domains, but they received no response from it, so they filed a lawsuit against it.
Additionally, Dubois said, suing such companies is a move that helps Facebook's mission to protect its users from "phishing, credential theft, and other online fraud methods.".
This is not the first time Facebook has filed a lawsuit against a proxy or domain provider. In March, it sued popular domain provider Namecheap , saying some of the domains it provided to users were intended to “defraud people by pretending to be connected to Facebook apps.” It also filed a similar lawsuit against OnlineNIC in October 2019.
The incident occurred at a particularly turbulent time for Facebook, which has recently been criticized, even by own employees , for its handling of posts by US President Donald Trump.
