Employ Media

["John League" <jleague@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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's TLD Charter Amendment

 

Dear Chairman Thrush and Members of the Board:

 

My name is John League, and I am editor and publisher of The Herald-Mail
Co. We publish a daily newspaper and numerous websites in Hagerstown,
Md., and the surrounding area. We are also part of several cooperative
websites in which we partner with newspapers and other digital
companies.

I learned yesterday about a request by Employ Media that is of extreme
concern to me and some of my publishing colleagues.

As I understand it, Employ Media is seeking the 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 company and
many like it would be adversely affected. We ask that this request be
rejected. We and many companies like us strongly oppose the unilateral
expansion of the .jobs charter to encompass regional and
industry-specific second-level registrations. 

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 appears to violate the spirit and the letter of the
charter holder's contract with ICANN. It will also harm the online
employment services community, all of whom have well-served the needs of
both employers and job seekers. The system works well as it is. There's
no need to bring unnecessary confusion to the process.

I apologize for the rather "unofficial" correspondence, but I was told
that time was of the essence. And I wanted you to know where we stand
before the issue receives your consideration.

Thank you for your time.

Regards,

John League

Editor and Publisher

The Herald-Mail Co.

Hagerstown, Md. 21741