San Francisco, Mar 2 (IANS): Facebook has sued four companies and three people based in China for promoting the sale of fake accounts, likes and followers on its platform as well as its photo-sharing service, Instagram.

According to the Facebook lawsuit filed in a US federal court, these firms and people did the same on Amazon, Apple, Google, LinkedIn and Twitter.

"We're also enforcing our rights under US intellectual property law for their illegal use of our trademarks and brand," Paul Grewal, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Litigation at Facebook, said in a statement on Friday.

"By filing the lawsuit, we hope to reinforce that this kind of fraudulent activity is not tolerated - and that we'll act forcefully to protect the integrity of our platform."

The people and the companies being sued in China were not identified.

The lawsuit asked the court to prevent these people and entities from creating and promoting the sale of fake accounts, likes, and followers on Facebook and Instagram.

It also asked the court to stop them from infringing on Facebook trademarks on their websites r using Facebook branded domain names to operate their websites like cyber squatting.