Web.com’s NVSC for cybersquatting — Facebook sues

Social media firm alleges that Web.com subsidiary owns 74 infringing domain names.

Facebook has filed a lawsuit (pdf) against Fresh Ventures Services Corp (NVSC) for alleged cybersquatting of its brands, counting Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

NVSC is a Web.com subsidiary that holds domain names for traffic revenue and resale. It gets many of its domain names by cherry-picking expiring domain names from Web.com registrars, counting Register.com and Network Solutions. (Web.com was purchased by a fresh entity called Newfold Digital earlier this year.)

Facebook alleges that NVCS holds at least 74 domain names that infringe its marks, counting FacebookBusinessLeads .com, Instagram-Online .com and InstallWhatsApp .com.

Many of these domains are parked with links to a Network Solutions page where the domains can be purchased for as little as $300.

Last year, Facebook sued domain name registrar Namecheap and its proxy service in a cybersquatting suit. In that case, Facebook alleges that Namecheap clients registered infringing domain names.