Ask HN: Facebook is threatening me for owning facebookrebrand.com
Any advice? They say that if I sell it, they can sue me for 100K.
10 comments
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.
- 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.
Sell their threatening letter as an NFT for 100K.
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
My only advice would be not to take advice from opposing council; seek your own legal advice from lawyers hired by you.
This is the canonical answer. Lawyer up, unfortunately.
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.
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.
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://facebooksl...
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20150225074006/http://facebooksl...
[deleted]
Is there context for this threat? Did you offer to sell it on a marketplace or host offensive/brand-damaging information?
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.
Publish everything
Raise funds
Facebook needs to die for democracy to live
...i call bs. publish their email to you.
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
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
sell it for 250,000