"I get so depressed whenever people spend excessive amounts of time on Facebook. Wouldn’t you rather spend time learning, growing, pursuing passions?"

— Nina Khosla

My cease and desist from Facebook

In October, I received a cease and desist message from my domain name provider on behalf of Facebook. Because the message was so long, I’m only going to share with you the important parts.

They started the email by talking about themselves:

We are writing concerning your registration and use of the domain name byebyefacebook.com, which contains the famous Facebook trademark.

As you undoubtedly know, Facebook is the leading online social network service.

Then went into detail about why they were contacting me:

Accordingly, we were concerned when we learned of your registration and use of byebyefacebook.com.  As we hope you can appreciate, protection of its trademarks is very important to Facebook. Your registration and use of byebyefacebook.com violates the Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. 1051 et seq.) because it infringes and dilutes the famous Facebook trademark.  

and proceeded to make threats:

We understand that you may have registered byebyefacebook.com without full knowledge of the law in this area. However, Facebook is concerned about your use of the Facebook trademark in your domain name.  As you may know, the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act provides for serious penalties (up to $100,000 per domain name) against persons who, without authorization, use, sell, or offer for sale a domain name that infringes another’s trademark. 

as well as demands:

While Facebook respects your right of expression and your desire to conduct business on the Internet, Facebook must enforce its own rights in order to protect its valuable and famous trademark. For these reasons, and to avoid consumer confusion, Facebook must insist that you immediately stop using byebyefacebook.com and disable any site available at that address. You should not sell, offer to sell, or transfer the domain name to a third party and should let the domain registration expire.

They finally ended the email with this:

Please confirm in writing that you will agree to resolve this matter as requested. If we do not receive confirmation from you that you will comply with our request, we will have no choice but to pursue all available remedies against you. 

Sincerely,

Ethel 

Legal Dept.
Facebook, Inc. 

Now, I’m more than happy to talk to them about this issue, but they didn’t leave me a way to get a hold of them. I spent a few minutes looking for a phone number or an email address, but they were all leading me back to Facebook and requiring me to create an account. If they seriously think I’m going to make a new Facebook account to get in touch with them about a domain name I purchased without any effort, think again!

If this blog (which doesn’t get a lot of page views, and has no advertising on it) is causing such anguish to the Facebook name, by all means, email me with way to get a hold of you that doesn’t require me to create a Facebook account.

"Joining a Facebook group about creative productivity is like buying a chair about jogging."

— Merlin Mann

"Bottom line is that my Facebook network formed when Facebook was a different product and leaves me with no use for its current incarnation."

— Steve Ritter

"Humans have always exchanged gifts of self-disclosure to build a relationship. Facebook, by design, weakens this ability."

— BJ Fogg