An appeal to ICANN re : multiple job Boards exploitation

[ramarao bodapati <rbodapati@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

July 12, 2010

To

Peter Dengate Thrush, Chairman
and 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@xxxxxxxxx

 

RE: Employ Media sTLD Charter Amendment

 

Dear Chairman Dengate Thrush and Members of the Board:

 

I am writing on behalf of TECHNOVATION Company 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), 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, 
salesperson.jobs, systems analyst.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,

 

 

Dr. RAMARAO V. BODAPATI, PhD, F.ASCE, PE,

10849, Weyburn Avenue, 

Los Angeles, CA 90024

e-mail ID : rbodapati@xxxxxxxxxxx   
 


 =======================================


To: rbodapati@xxxxxxxxxxx
From: steven@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:16:07 -0400
Subject: Do You Want a Million New Job Boards?


Ramarao 
 
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. 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 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? 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 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 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 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 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@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), 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, 
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,

[Insert your name, job title, and contact information here]

 

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 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 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 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 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@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), 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, 
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,

[Insert your name, job title, and contact information here]

 

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 this proposal 
because the process stinks, simply forward this email to 
jobs-phased-allocation@xxxxxxxxx by Thursday along with a note stating that you 
want ICANN to reject the proposal. Edit the letter if you have time. Also send 
a letter via "real" mail if you can. But if all you do is forward the email 
along with your objection,and contact information, that will help tremendously. 
 And remember to cc me if you could!
 


Steven Rothberg | Chief Executive Officer
_______________________________________________________________

CollegeRecruiter.com | College Career Connector
Selected by WEDDLE's as a Top Job Board 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010Proud to be a 
woman-owned, small business

Web: http://www.CollegeRecruiter.com
Email: Steven@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Direct: 952-848-2211 | Mobile: 952-217-0793 | Toll Free: 800-835-4989 x704 | 
eFax: 702-537-2227
 sjrcollege
   
CollegeRecruiter.com Blog How and Why to Object to Taking .jobs Away From 
Employers and Creating a Million New Job Boards
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3109 W 50 St Ste 121
Minneapolis, MN 55410-2102 





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