Employ Media sTLD Charter Amendment

[MathesSK@xxxxxxx]

July 13, 2010 
Peter Dengate Thrush, Chairman
Members of the Board of  Directors
International Corporation for Assigned Names and  Numbers
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
4676 Admiralty  Way, Suite 330
Marina del Rey, CA 90292-6601 
RE: Employ Media sTLD Charter Amendment 
Dear Chairman Dengate Thrush and Members of the Board: 
I am writing to urge you to reject Employ Media's request for authority to  
permit second level registration of strings that do not correspond to an  
employer's name in the .jobs sponsored top level domain. I strongly feel if  
after reading the content of this letter and are not moved to rejection of  
this request, then you need to talk to people face to face and find honest  
input from those who understand this situation and the importance of this  
rejection.  
Since 1993, the community of online employment service companies--job  
boards, associations, staffing firms, newspapers and other publications that  
operate job posting and/or resume search databases--has effectively served  
working men and women and employers worldwide. These same organizations have  
also significantly improved the career prospects of veterans, minorities,  
disadvantaged persons and those affected by natural disasters such as 
Hurricane  Katrina. They have, in every respect, acted as "the Sources of 
Success," 
the  trademark of the International Association of Employment Web Sites 
(_http://www.employmentwebsites.org_ (http://www.employmentwebsites.org/) ), 
their only industry trade  association. 
This community is now threatened by the proposed expansion of the .jobs  
top level domain (TLD). The charter holder is attempting to extend the  
application of the TLD from its approved community--direct employers--into the  
online employment services community by introducing geocentric (i.e.,  
Atlanta.jobs, NewYork.jobs, Athens.jobs) and occupation specific (i..e, 
_nurse.jobs_ (http://nurse.jobs/) ,  _salesperson.jobs_ 
(http://salesperson.jobs/) , 
_systemsanalyst.jobs_ (http://systemsanalyst.jobs/) ) web  sites. It now has a 
proposal to implement this plan before the governing board  of the Internet 
Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN). 
This proposal violates both the spirit and the letter of the charter  
holder's contract with ICANN. No less important, it will grievously harm the  
online employment services community and therefore my organization by confusing 
 the job seekers and employers who have long been the customers of the 
community.  
Sincerely, 
Sandra K. Mathes 
Business Analyst 
845  Pine Valley Drive, #3H 
Elizabethtown, KY 42701 
270-234-8485  
Oh, one more thing. When you email the above letter to ICANN, please cc me  
at Steven@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. I want to make a difference in this process 
and  if you'll cc me on your email, I'll know that my time was well spent.
 
So if you're like me and you think that ICANN should reject the proposal  
because the process stinks, simply forward this email to If you believe that 
the  Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and job board 
organizations like  Direct Employers should operate in an open, transparent, 
and honest 
fashion,  then take a few minutes from your day and read this blog entry. On 
the other  hand, if you believe that the ends justify the means, then sit 
back and wait  until about mid-August when some back room deals could be 
approved that will  result in Employ Media, a for-profit organization owned by 
the non-profit Direct  Employers (yes, that's correct) is able to do just 
about whatever it wants with  the .jobs domains. 
 

 
If you're a student or career service office professional, wouldn't you  
love it if suddenly there are over a million job boards with the vast majority 
 of them owned and operated by a for-profit owned by a non-profit which has 
sold  some domains to legitimate employers and kept others for itself and 
whose  revenues are likely to be generated primarily by job seekers clicking 
on ads and  being sold on the value of getting their credit ratings checked 
and requesting  information from whatever "school" is willing to pay for the 
student's email and  other contact information? I thought not.
 
If you're a third party recruiter specializing in information technology  
workers, wouldn't you love it if Employ Media refuses to sell  
InformationTechnology.jobs to you and instead creates its own job board using  
that 
domain? Better yet, how about if you specialize in that market in Chicago  and 
Employ Media gives you the choice of buying  ChicagoInformationTechnology.jobs 
for a measly $5,000 per year or watching them  create and promote that 
domain to your clients? I thought not.
 
Or you're Microsoft and Employ Media gives you the choice of buying both  
SoftwareEngineer.jobs or SeattleSoftwareEngineer.jobs for $100,000 per year  
(they'll have full control over the pricing for different domains for 
different  potential buyers) or they'll turn around and sell those to Amazon 
for 
$10,000  per year (maybe their sister works at Amazon so they want to cut her 
a deal that  they won't make available on the same terms to you). Better 
yet, you're American  Airlines and you're not even offered the opportunity to 
buy  AmericanAirlines.jobs because Employ Media decides that it wants to use 
it to  create a job board with job postings scraped from all sorts of 
U.S.-based  airlines as well as loads of ads telling you that you need to have 
your credit  history checked or you won't be hired and you should immediately 
request  information about continuing your education because otherwise no 
employer will  want to hire you. Nice, huh?
 
So how did this all get started? Actually, the origins were innocent 
enough.  Six years ago, SHRM and Employ Media got together and submitted an 
application  to the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers 
(ICANN), the  governing body for Internet domain names and top level domain 
(TLD) 
extensions  like .com and .net, and requested that ICANN create a new TLD, 
.jobs. ICANN  approved the application a year later in 2005. 
SHRM was to be the sponsor of the new .jobs TLD. As such, its role was to 
set  policy and establish registration requirements. Employ Media was 
essentially to  administer the TLD, including selling the new domains. Due to a 
startling lack  of transparency, we don't know much else about the relationship 
although it has  been _reported_ 
(http://www.ere.net/2010/04/08/why-shrm-must-reject-the-jobs-amendment)  that 
"SHRM receives a flat fee from Employ 
Media for  its role in sponsoring the .jobs TLD." 
So what .jobs domains are available? The _.jobs charter_ 
(http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/agreements/jobs/appendix-S-05may05.htm)  limits 
their use to 
domains such as  organizations such as Toyota or Microsoft using them to drive 
traffic to their  career sites. So Toyota could use Toyota.jobs and 
Microsoft could use  Microsoft.jobs but job boards such as Monster and 
CollegeRecruiter.com could not  use Monster.jobs or CollegeRecruiter.jobs 
unless it was 
to promote their own job  openings and not those of their clients. Similarly, 
job boards like Monster and  CollegeRecruiter.com could not register 
Automotive.jobs or SoftwareEngineer.jobs  and use those to drive traffic to job 
posting ads they sold to Toyota or  Microsoft. In short, the .jobs domains 
were reserved for employers promoting  their own job openings. End of story. Or 
was it? 
Well, if the story ended there, no one would be upset except, perhaps, for  
SHRM and Employ Media. You see, after five years, Employ Media has managed 
to  sell only 15,000 .jobs domains even though there are some 13 million 
employers  in the U.S. alone and likely hundreds of millions more in other 
countries. So  SHRM and Employ Media apparently huddled up and agreed that 
their 
partnership  was failing and brainstormed about how they could turns their 
lemons into  lemonade.  
The scheme they hatched was to pretend that ICANN authorized Employ Media 
to  do with .jobs just about anything it wanted with the .jobs TLD included 
the  creation of potentially a million new job boards owned and operated by 
Employ  Media. Yes, a million. They really said that. 
SHRM apparently thought this was such a good idea that in a process that  
resulted in the resignations of multiple members of the task force charged 
with  overseeing the process, it gave its blessing to Employ Media to charge 
ahead.  Employ Media could sell some .jobs domains to job boards and other 
organizations  whose eligibility and cost for buying the domains would be 
determined by Employ  Media with no oversight in a process which would lack 
transparency (see a  pattern here?) and use other domains to create perhaps a 
million new cookie  cutter job boards to go along with the estimated 100,000 
which already  exist. 
Do you want Employ Media to create hundreds of thousands and perhaps a  
million new job boards however it sees fit when the charter it and SHRM were  
granted clearly restricted the use of the .jobs domains to employers wanting 
to  create an easy way for their candidates to go directly to the career 
section of  the employers' web sites? Some may argue that this is just free 
enterprise at  work and I would agree in part. Although the creation of a 
million new job  boards will surely add new competition, that isn't the 
problem. 
I wouldn't be  thrilled about that, but I also wouldn't be helping to lead 
the objectors in  this process. Rather, it is the lack of openness, 
transparency, and even honesty  that is the problem. If the new domains were to 
be 
sold like .com domains --  anyone can buy them in a manner that is open, 
transparent, and honest -- then  you wouldn't hear such a fuss. But if Employ 
Media gets its way then some .jobs  domains will be sold behind closed doors 
and others will be retained by Employ  Media to enrich its coffers through the 
creation of perhaps a million new job  boards. 
If you agree that Employ Media should be allowed to do what it wants, do  
nothing for inaction will surely lead to ICANN's approval. But if you don't 
want  Employ Media creating and operating domains such as Headhunter.jobs,  
StaffingAgency.jobs, Chicago.jobs, SoftwareEngineer.jobs, SiliconValley.jobs, 
 Dublin.jobs, or HoustonProfessionalSales.jobs then you need to take action 
today  by simply sending an email to ICANN in which you object to the plans 
of Employ  Media. 
Note that a personalized letter is a bit better than sending the same 
letter  as everyone else, but sending the same letter is FAR better than 
sending 
no  letter. Similarly, sending a letter by mail on letterhead is a bit 
better than  sending by email on letterhead or sending a regular email, but 
sending a regular  email is FAR better than sending none. So if you only have 
time to send a  regular email, do so today. If you have time to also print it 
onto letterhead,  sign it, and mail it, do so today. As _reported_ 
(http://www.ere.net/2010/07/07/public-comments-solidly-in-support-of-jobs-expansion)
  
last week by John Zappe of ERE, all comments must be  received within the 
next four days on Thursday, July 15, 2010. 
If you don't know what to write, have a look at what _I and  others have 
submitted_ (http://forum.icann.org/lists/jobs-phased-allocation/)  or use 
this: 
July 15, 2010 
Peter Dengate Thrush, Chairman
Members of the Board of  Directors
International Corporation for Assigned Names and  Numbers
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
4676 Admiralty  Way, Suite 330
Marina del Rey, CA 90292-6601
USA 
By Email To: _jobs-phased-allocation@icann.org_ 
(mailto:jobs-phased-allocation@xxxxxxxxx)  
RE: Employ Media sTLD Charter Amendment 
Dear Chairman Dengate Thrush and Members of the Board: 
I am writing on behalf of [insert the name of your organization here], to  
urge you to reject Employ Media's request for authority to permit second 
level  registration of strings that do not correspond to an employer's name in 
the  .jobs sponsored top level domain. My organization would be directly and 
 adversely affected by this request and therefore opposes the unilateral  
expansion of the .jobs charter to encompass regional and industry-specific  
second-level registrations.  
Since 1993, the community of online employment service companies--job  
boards, associations, staffing firms, newspapers and other publications that  
operate job posting and/or resume search databases--has effectively served  
working men and women and employers worldwide. These same organizations have  
also significantly improved the career prospects of veterans, minorities,  
disadvantaged persons and those affected by natural disasters such as 
Hurricane  Katrina. They have, in every respect, acted as "the Sources of 
Success," 
the  trademark of the International Association of Employment Web Sites 
(_http://www.employmentwebsites.org_ (http://www.employmentwebsites.org/) ), 
their only industry trade  association. 
This community is now threatened by the proposed expansion of the .jobs  
top level domain (TLD). The charter holder is attempting to extend the  
application of the TLD from its approved community--direct employers--into the  
online employment services community by introducing geocentric (i.e.,  
Atlanta.jobs, NewYork.jobs, Athens.jobs) and occupation specific (i..e, 
_nurse.jobs_ (http://nurse.jobs/) ,  _salesperson.jobs_ 
(http://salesperson.jobs/) , 
_systemsanalyst.jobs_ (http://systemsanalyst.jobs/) ) web  sites. It now has a 
proposal to implement this plan before the governing board  of the Internet 
Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN). 
This proposal violates both the spirit and the letter of the charter  
holder's contract with ICANN. No less important, it will grievously harm the  
online employment services community and therefore my organization by confusing 
 the job seekers and employers who have long been the customers of the 
community.  
Sincerely,