Facebook accused of trying to bypass GDPR, slurp domain owners' Whois info

> “Instantmonogram.com; letsfacethebook.com – in each of these cases, the domain name contains the whole trademark separated by additional characters ('Insta[…]gram' or 'Face[…]book') but bears no relation to any infringement of it,” the Tucows post noted.

EA is gonna be rich! Lol.

> Its representative continues to claim that being a registered trademark holder is sufficient to be granted full access to the Whois database, and that all other routes are unduly burdensome.

Do they literally mean Facebook could ‘whois ...’ and get registrant info? If so, that’s ridiculous.

Even with legitimate requests via the dispute mechanisms, I think they should have a CTLog type system in place where we can see who’s requesting what.

> “You don’t know who to sue until you’ve got the Whois information,”

IE: The proper process with real lawyers and intermediaries that will put up a proper legal defence when warranted is too expensive compared to getting names directly and stomping on people that don't have the means to defend themselves.

Kudos to Namecheap and Tucows.