The UDRP for the four letter domain PHHH.com was covered by Elliot back in May; the domain was seemingly ‘innocent‘, and yet, it was contested at the World Intellectual Property Organization.
One of the fundamental elements of a UDRP is the necessity of the Respondent to respond. There is very little chance that a domain will remain with the Respondent, if they fail to respond properly to the UDRP.
In the case of PHHH.com there was no official response, and the Respondent – a Chinese individual – simply responded with how he acquired the domain at an auction.
PHHH.com was ordered to be transferred.
PHH Corporation of Mt. Laurel, New Jersey was the Complainant in this case, and many have wondered how an extra “H” at the end makes a difference.
The Complainant made the allegation that PHHH is a typo of PHH; naturally, they own both the trademark and the three letter domain, PHH.com.
“The Complainant is the registered owner of the Trade Mark in the United States. The Respondent has engaged in typosquatting by registering a domain name that is confusingly similar to the Trade Mark by using a common typographical error made by Internet users when inputting the Complainant’s website address (<phh.com>) into a browser.
The Respondent’s use of this confusingly similar domain name is misleading members of the public into believing the website at the Disputed Domain Name is endorsed by or affiliated with the Complainant.”
Unfortunately for the Respondent, John Swinson, sole panelist, agreed that the use of PHHH.com as a parked repository of PPC ads constitutes bad faith and ordered the domain to be transferred.
For the full text of the UDRP decision on PHHH.com click here.
Holy cow. That’s just pure RDNH and the panelist fell for it.