Meta sues domain registrar Freenom for alleged cybersquatting
It became clear that Meta sued Freenom, a domain registrar (a business that registers domain names). According to Meta, in addition to cybersquatting (domain occupation), Freenom was actively conducting phishing attacks on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp from users of Freenom's ccTLD (country-specific top-level domain). That's what I mean.
Sued by Meta, Freenom Halts Domain Registrations – Krebs on Security
Freenom-First-Amended-Complaint-3March2023.pdf
(PDF file)
Freenom is a Netherlands-based domain registrar that handles the following ccTLDs: Central African Republic '.cf', Gabon '.ga', Equatorial Guinea '.gq', Mali '.ml', New Zealand Territory Tokelau Regarding '.tk', the registration fee is free.
Meta is suing Freenom for cybersquatting and trademark infringement, and is also seeking identities of 20 users who were actively conducting phishing attacks on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
A survey of phishing attacks conducted by the Interisle Consulting Group, a corporate management consultant, in 2021 found that 5 of the top 10 ccTLDs most frequently reported as phishing domains were from Freenom.
| rank | TLDs | Dealer | Number of domains under TLD | Cumulative number of reported phishing domains |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | com | Verisign | 151,618,533 cases | 260,636 cases |
| 2 | tk | Freenom | 19,987,952 cases | 40,020 cases |
| 3 | xyz | XYZ.COM | 2,978,332 cases | 27,532 cases |
| Four | ml | Freenom | 3,816,199 cases | 27,284 cases |
| Five | ga | Freenom | 4,661,469 cases | 21,657 cases |
| 6 | cf | Freenom | 4,179,760 cases | 19,187 cases |
| 7 | gq | Freenom | 3,375,388 cases | 16,168 cases |
| 8 | cn | CNNIC | 13,708,468 cases | 16,052 cases |
| 9 | top | Jiangsu Bangning | 2,306,018 cases | 15,129 cases |
| Ten | net | Verisign | 13,407,660 cases | 14,398 cases |
In the complaint, Meta criticizes that ``Freenom continues to license the same customer even after notifying that the customer is committing violations or phishing.''
Also, Freenom isn't ignoring complaints about abuse because it's bad for business, but rather because Freenom is part of a network that's being built to promote cybersquatting. I also argue that it is not.
A few days after this complaint, Freenom has stopped accepting new domain registrations. According to security news blog Krebs on Security, Freenom did not respond to a request for comment.
Related Posts:
in Web Service, Posted by logc_nt