Opposition to Employ Media Request to Change sTLD Charter

["Matt Ginsberg" <mginsberg@xxxxxxxxx>]

July 14, 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

Dear Chairman Dengate Thrush and Members of the Board:

The National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association (NRC) is the
only trade association organized specifically to serve the needs of the
railroad and rail transit construction industry. The NRC's primary objective
is to advance the mutual interests of its members and the railroad
construction industry by: 

.        Promoting, developing and protecting the railroad construction
industry; 

.        Promoting continuing education, and improvement of railroad
construction methods; 

.        Promoting and supporting high ethical standards and combating
unfair practices; 

.        Promoting and improving communication between contractors and
railroads, owners, public agencies, engineers and suppliers; 

.        Promoting and supporting legislation that furthers the railroad
construction business climate; and

.        Promoting safety by offering Roadway Worker Protection Training,
Safety Training DVDs, and Employee Safety Manuals free to our members. 

 

There are over 300 member companies of the NRC, including contractors,
suppliers and associated professional firms.

I am writing on behalf of the National Railroad Construction and Maintenance
Association 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. The NRC, which
would be directly and adversely affected, opposes the unilateral expansion
of the .jobs charter to encompass regional and industry-specific
second-level registrations. 

Under the terms of ICANN's request for proposals for new sTLDs dated 15
December 2003 (the "sTLD RFP"), applicants - including Employ Media - were
required to demonstrate that the proposed sTLD addresses the needs and
interests of a clearly defined community (the Sponsored TLD Community). In
addition, applicants were required to demonstrate that the
policy-formulation procedures for the sTLD operate primarily in the
interests of the Sponsored TLD Community, and that the proposed sTLD enjoys
broad based support of the Sponsored TLD Community.[1] 

In its application, Employ Media proposed to serve the needs of human
resources professionals responsible for human resources management in the
corporate setting, and pledged to maintain .jobs as "a name space for
employers."[2] The limited nature of the .jobs Sponsored Community is
reflected by the applicant's commitment to limit registrations to the legal
name of an employer and/or a name or abbreviation by which the employer is
commonly known. According to the sTLD Application, "due to restrictions set
forth in this proposal, a registration in the .jobs sTLD will be associated
with an employer,"[3] and Employ Media committed to prohibit registration of
occupational and industry, and geographic identifiers." The bottom line is
that as proposed by Employ Media and approved by ICANN, the .jobs sTLD is
intended to serve HR professionals and recruiting firms representing direct
employers only, in each case by using the legal name of such employers as a
registration at the second level. That community does not include online
employment services providers like the NRC, nor did Employ Media demonstrate
the support of online employment services providers in connection with the
.jobs sTLD Application.

Employ Media's current request for authority to permit the "registration,
use, and promotions of domains that are not the company names of the
registrant"[5] would fundamentally alter the Sponsored Community for the
.jobs sTLD and eliminate its pledge not to create second level registrations
of regional and industry-specific job boards. Employ Media did not attempt
to demonstrate the support of online employment services providers and their
vendors, and in fact went out of its way to avoid contacting job board
operators about the proposed expansion.[6] This is not surprising, given
that Employ Media intends to add second level registrations that will be
confusingly similar to established job boards. 

As a material change to the .jobs Registry Agreement, this request must be
reviewed by the ICANN Board based on applicable criteria from the sTLD RFP.
Under those criteria, the request should be rejected as an attempt to "route
around" the sponsorship eligibility requirements in the sTLD RFP and the
protections built into the .jobs Registry Agreement to prevent "abusive
registration activities and other activities that affect the legal rights of
others."[7] Approval of the .jobs Phased Allocation Program would threaten
the integrity of the RSEP process and undermine the credibility of ICANN's
commitments in connection with the introduction of new top level domains in
general.

Sincerely,

Matt

 

Matt Ginsberg

 

Director of Operations

National Railroad Construction & Maintenance Association (NRC)

 

Phone: 202.715.2919
Fax: 202.318.0867

500 New Jersey Ave NW, Suite 400

Washington, DC 20001

 

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