Opposition to Employ Media Request to Change sTLD Charter

["Emmanuel Lemakis" <elemakis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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

RE: Opposition to Employ Media Request to Change sTLD Charter

Dear Chairman Dengate Thrush and Members of the Board:

 

I am writing on behalf of the College Art 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 College Art Association, 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.

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." 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," 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 College Art Association, 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" 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. 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." 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,

Emmanuel Lemakis
Director of Programs

College Art Association

275 Seventh Avenue

New York, N.Y. 10001

Tel. 212 691-1051

Fax 212 627-2381

www.collegeart.org