RE: Employ Media sTLD Charter Amendment

["the owens group inc. owens" <owensgroup@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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

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. Myorganization 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. 

The separate and distinct communities of employers, staffing agencies, third
party recruiters, job boards, and even career services are 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,
salesperson.jobs,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,

 

Micki Owens

Vice-President

The Owens Group, Inc.