Namecheap Stands Firm Against Efforts to Undermine Customer Privacy

As one of the world’s largest domain registrars, Namecheap takes customer privacy and Internet rights and due process seriously. Over the years we have taken a stand against many previous attempts to undermine our customers’ rights.

Today we find ourselves in another battle as Facebook is attempting to bypass legal protections and our own stringent customer protections. 

Facebook claims that certain websites have violated Facebook’s trademarks and may be perpetuating fraud due to misleading domains. 

Because Namecheap does not voluntarily divulge domain registrants’ private details (as protected by our Domain Privacy service) without a court-ordered subpoena, Facebook has filed a lawsuit against us.

Our CEO Richard Kirkendall has this to say about the lawsuit:

Namecheap takes every fraud and abuse allegation seriously, and diligently investigates each reported case of abuse. We actively remove any evidence-based abuse of our services on a daily basis. Where there is no clear evidence of abuse, or when it is purely a trademark claim, Namecheap will direct complainants, such as Facebook, to follow industry-standard protocol. Outside of said protocol, a legal court order is always required to provide private user information.

Facebook may be willing to tread all over their customers’ privacy on their own platform, and in this case, it appears they want other companies to do it for them, with their own customers. This is just another attack on privacy and due process in order to strong-arm companies that have services like domain privacy, intended to protect millions of Internet users’ personal private data.

Namecheap believes our customers have rights just like large corporations, and we stand firm against any company or entity that insists on invading privacy without due process.