It sounds like the fraudulent domains are foremost a trademark infringement.
The fact that the domains are used for phishing or to perpetrate criminal acts is a secondary matter that adds gravitas to Facebook's public presentation of why they are suing Namecheap.
The infringing parties are those that register the domains using Whoisguard, and Namecheap is a non-party witness to the infringement.
So, serving Namecheap a subpoena, and then suing them for compliance after they neglect to respond to the subpoena is apparently a normal method for getting information from an uncooperative non-party witness in a civil legal proceeding.
Presumably, once they are successful in their lawsuit and have the names of the individuals responsible for the domain names, they will hand the evidence over to the police for investigation of criminal acts such as wire-fraud etc.
Quite typical that the crime being investigated is a petty trademark infringement, while there are real victims who’s privacy and dignity is violated by these scammers.
It indeed disgusts me that as a society of laws we go after violent criminals, not because they violate real victims, but because they infringe on a trademark of a multi-billion dollar company.
The fact that the domains are used for phishing or to perpetrate criminal acts is a secondary matter that adds gravitas to Facebook's public presentation of why they are suing Namecheap.
The infringing parties are those that register the domains using Whoisguard, and Namecheap is a non-party witness to the infringement.
So, serving Namecheap a subpoena, and then suing them for compliance after they neglect to respond to the subpoena is apparently a normal method for getting information from an uncooperative non-party witness in a civil legal proceeding.
Presumably, once they are successful in their lawsuit and have the names of the individuals responsible for the domain names, they will hand the evidence over to the police for investigation of criminal acts such as wire-fraud etc.
https://www.weil.com/~/media/files/pdfs/subpoenas-using-subp...