Opposition to Employ Media Request to Change sTLD Charter

["Jon R. Krance" <jkrance@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Chairman Dengate Thrush and Members of the Board:

The Craft & Hobby Association (CHA) is an international, not-for-profit trade 
association consisting of thousands of member companies engaged in the design, 
manufacture, distribution and retail sales of products in the nearly $30 
billion U.S. craft and hobby industry.  The CHA Career Center is the 
association's web site where members and non-members can post jobs and resumes 
that focus on opportunities specifically within the craft industry.

I am writing on behalf of the Craft and Hobby Association Career Center 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 Craft and Hobby Association Career 
Center], 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 Craft and Hobby Association Career Center  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,


 

Jon R. Krance
Marketing Manager
Craft & Hobby Association
319 E 54th Street Elmwood Park NJ 07407
Tel: 201-835-1214
(800) 822-0494 
Fax: 2018351264 
Mobile: (201) 566-1317 

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