Well hey guess what? .PH domain actually receives WIPO UDRP cases and I'm surprised to know that.
Sulit.COM.PH Going After Sulit.PH
WIPO stands for World Intellectual Property Organization and UDRP stands for Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution Policy. Simply put, this orginazation is mainly involved in justifying whether domains have been registered under bad faith, thus having power to judge whether or not domains should be turned over to such infringements.
There are actually 3 UDRP cases which have been filed so far in the 2011. Two of which are filed by Skype against those who registered skype.ph and skype.com.ph (separate entities), both of which have already been decided on in favor of the complainant.
The latest and more interesting part is the latest filing, done by NETREPRENEUR CONNECTIONS ENTERPRISES INC. (Sulit.com.ph) against the Sulit.PH, which is currently under Private Registration (meaning details of the registrant isn't available for public viewing).
Upon visiting typing in the domain though, you will be redirected to ClassifiedAds.PH which is registered and probably run by SEO.PH.
The case is still on pending status though I already have a good idea how this will turn out. Sulit is a classified ads type of community and seeing how the domain Sulit.PH is being made to redirect people to something of similar nature, this is definitely bad faith done on the part of the registrant to hijack some traffic.
What I quite fancy is the fact that it takes $1,500.00 to file UDRP case, which equates to at least PHP64,000. I'm not surprised that Sulit is making that much money considering how well known and established it is in the field of bargain hunting in the Philippines, I applaud the effort put to protect their brand which is a very smart move especially in a case where there are two (2) ccTLD versions for a country.
Considering how you can't just beg for a domain, I'm wondering if Sulit initially offered anything to ClassifiedAds.PH for the domain. I mean, a P20k or P40k offer would have been sufficient rather than blurting out $1.5k, yes? That would even be much more faster in terms of domain handover.
But I guess it's more of a point of view wherein obvious cybersquatting like this shouldn't be tolerated nor made profitable in favor of the offender.
On another note, the fact that Sulit is going after the .PH only means the potential value of a shorter ccTLD that has continuously been ignored. It's true that .COM.PH is quite popular over .PH though it can't be denied that ccTLD extensions similar to this pattern of having two versions, the shorter of which being released later, has always had the public favor the shorter version such as .COM.CN vs .CN and .COM.CO vs .CO.