Facebook has sued an India-based domain provider, Compsys Domain Solutions Private Ltd, for issuing 12 domains impersonating its products like Instagram and Whatsapp, the social media giant has said. 

The lawsuit has been filed in a Virginia court in the US. 

Facebook said the action was taken to "prevent fraud and stop the malicious use of our company and product names." 

"We filed a lawsuit in Virginia today against 12 domain names registered by India-based proxy service Compsys Domain Solutions Private Ltd," the California-headquartered company said. 

These 12 domain names, Facebook said, were designed to deceive people by impersonating its family of apps. Some of the domain names included facebook-verify-inc.com, instagramhjack.com and videocall-whatsapp.com.

Facebook Inc owns some of the most popular social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp.

"We regularly scan the internet for domain names and apps that infringe on our trademarks and today’s lawsuit is part of this ongoing effort to protect people from phishing, credential theft and other methods of online fraud. We filed suit after we reached out to Compsys about these domain names and did not receive any response," Facebook said in a statement. 

"Registrars and proxy services have a responsibility to take down deceptive and malicious websites," the company said. 

Facebook had earlier this March had filed similar lawsuits against Namecheap and its proxy service, and OnlineNIC and its proxy service in October 2019.

We will continue to take legal action to protect the people who use our services, the social media company said.