CollegeRecruiter.com
How and Why to Object to Taking .jobs Away From Employers and Creating a Million New Job Boards
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 which is closely related to 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. (read more)

ERE.net
Public Comments Solidly In Support Of .Jobs Expansion
by John Zappe

Three weeks into a public comment period and what the Internet addressing authority is being told is that it should approve changing the .jobs program.

All but one of the 20 comments (six from the same person) support the request by Employ Media to be allowed to offer occupational, geographic, and other names in conjunction with a .jobs extension. Currently, only company names (ATT.jobs) are permitted.

Most of the comments are short, and along the lines of this one:

"I've reviewed the minutes of the .JOBS PDP Council meetings, and I think that the amendments are very comprehensive. All of the relevant issues appear to be covered, so I recommend that the ICCAN (sic) Board approve the recommendations."

Indeed, the wording of several is curiously similar, making a specific point of noting that the writer has read the minutes of the advisory group appointed by the Society for Human Resource Management.

Interested persons can post comments until July 15 here.

Unlike the comments solicited by SHRM's group, these comments are public and include the names of the writers. Some voluntarily identify themselves and the company they represent. At least one, Jose Manuel Alvarez, who wrote the six posts supporting the change to the .jobs program, is, or at least was, a close business associate of one of the central figures in the .jobs expansion plan. (read more)

Employ Media Proposed Amendment March 22, 2010 Submitted by: Brian Johnson Employ Media Proposed Amendment
March 22, 2010
Proposed Amendment:
To the extent that any policies, practices or business rules in .jobs govern Employ Media's ability to provision, allocate, register (to third parties or itself), allow use of in the DNS (by third parties or itself), reserve or remove from reserve, any non-"companyname" domain names, including industry and occupational domains, geographic domains, dictionary term domains and two-character domains, all such policies, practices or business rules are amended to allow Employ Media, at Employ Media's discretion (provided that Employ Media maintains adherence to the .jobs Charter), to provision, allocate, register (to third parties or itself), allow use of in the DNS (by third parties or itself), reserve and remove from reserve, all such non-"companyname" domain names.

Submitting Party:
Employ Media LLC

Discussion:
Employ Media is the Registry Operator of the .jobs top level domain ("TLD"). Employ Media's role is to provision, allocate or otherwise allow registration of domain names in .jobs. In enacting this role, Employ Media must adhere to the .jobs Charter. The Charter states that only members of the international HR management community are qualified to apply for a .jobs domain name. Currently, Employ Media only accepts registration applications from qualified applicants, and only for domains that correspond to the applicant's company's name or trade name ("companyname" domain names). Upon receipt of an application, Employ Media evaluates registration information and, in its sole determination, decides whether to approve or decline. If approved, the requested domain is registered by the applicant (i.e., the registrant of record is the company).

Employ Media's proposed amendment relates to non-"companyname" domains, such as industry and occupational domains (domains which identify or describe an industry or occupation, such as nursing.jobs), geographic domains (domains which identify a geographic area, such as cleveland.jobs), dictionary term domains (domains which are words or phrases which are contained in a dictionary, such as best.jobs), two-character domains (domains with only two characters, such as a1.jobs) and various combinations (such as clevelandnursing.jobs).

Previously, Employ Media began the process of creating a self-managed class of names in the .jobs tld. Called the shared domain beta test, many non-"companyname" .jobs domains were (and in many cases still are) registered to Employ Media. Employ Media "used" these domains in the DNS by redirecting them to a third party (the Direct Employers Association), who themselves "used" the domains by providing uniform, consistent content to all the domains in the shared beta test.

In the shared domain beta, if a user accessed "marketing.jobs" in their browser, they would have gone to an Employ Media-registered domain with content provided by the Direct Employers Association. This content included job listings from employers at no charge to the employers; it was an automated free job listing service available to all employers worldwide to allow candidates to apply directly to the employer. Employ Media received no domain name registration fees for the domains it selected and registered for the shared domain beta test. All employers were allowed to list jobs at no cost. Job seekers were allowed to apply directly to the employer at no cost. Any employer could, however, purchase from Employ Media one or more of a limited number of "premium placement" positions at each domain, a fixed position for a fixed duration of time to achieve greater visibility (such as in the case of an urgent hiring need). Premium

1 Employ Media Proposed Amendment March 22, 2010 Submitted by: Brian Johnson
placement served the purpose of funding the beta test in lieu of Employ Media's receipt of domain name registration fees, job posting fees or job applicant submission fees.

Based upon input from the .jobs community, Employ Media selected the domains included in the shared domain beta(and thus not considered "companyname" domains), and Employ Media registered each of these names in its own name (i.e., the registrant of record was/is Employ Media LLC). No other party outside of Employ Media was/is the registrant of record for any domain in the shared domain beta test.

The shared domain beta test has been placed on hold while this proposed amendment is considered by the PDP Council. By approving this proposed amendment, the Council will confirm on behalf of their HR community Employ Media's ability to (a) provision and allocate non-"companyname" domains, which means Employ Media decides whether a domain is a "companyname" domain, and further decides who can register such names; (b) determine registration of the domains, including registering them to itself (i.e., a self-managed class of names); (c) reserve and un-reserve the names, to both allow and prohibit registration and use of the names; and (d) use the domains itself and allow third party use of the domains.

Approval of the proposed amendment confirms that Employ Media has the authorities identified above. Such authority is broad enough to cover the workings of the shared domain beta test, and Employ Media would likely restart the shared domain beta.

Employ Media is aware that some in the community may have alleged that the shared domain beta was an exclusive deal, and that Employ Media did not solicit beta proposals from other parties. Employ Media notes that the authorities identified above are broader than the shared domain beta test as described. This will allow Employ Media to explore other ways of provisioning/ allocating non-"companyname" domains, including domain-industry standard practices like initiating Request for Proposals to invite interested parties to propose specific plans for registration, use and promotion of the domains, implementing auctions for the domains, and implementing a first-come, first-serve real-time, post-validation (if necessary) mechanism of allocation. It will also allow Employ Media flexibility in maintaining the shared domain beta test, all within the scope of the .jobs Charter. While it is not Employ Media's current intent to employ any of these industry-standard or industry non-standard ways of provisioning/allocating domains, Employ Media will remain open to all proposals regarding .jobs domains, so long as the scope of the .jobs Charter is maintained.

Effect on any applicable policies, practices or business rules of .jobs:
Employ Media believes that the following provisions from the .jobs registry agreement (the "Agreement") may be affected by this proposed amendment:
From Appendix S, Part IV:
The Registry Operator may from time to time introduce new categories of domain registrations, consistent with the Charter and in compliance with the provisions of this Sponsored TLD Registry Agreement. Registry Operator reserves the right to introduce additional start-up plan(s) for any such introductions.

From Section 7.1(b):
Registry Operator shall not act as a registrar with respect to the TLD. This shall not preclude Registry Operator from registering names within the TLD to itself through a request made to an ICANN-accredited registrar. 2

Employ Media Proposed Amendment March 22, 2010 Submitted by: Brian Johnson
From Appendix S, Part I, the Charter:

The .JOBS TLD will be established to serve the needs of the international human resource management community (the "Community"). "Human resource management" is the organizational function that focuses on the management and direction of people. The Community consists of those persons who deal with the human element in an organization - people as individuals and groups, their recruitment, selection, assignment, motivation, compensation, utilization, services, training, development, promotion, termination and retirement.

Also from the Charter: (read the balance)

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