NAA Opposes Change to .jobs Charter

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and Employ Media, which are exclusively licensed to administer the .jobs domain for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), are proposing to revise their original charter.

SHRM and Employ Media want to expand the .jobs domain from employer websites, such as Microsoft.jobs and Verizon.jobs to include free “location” and “occupational” sites, such as chicago.jobs and IT.jobs.

The objective is to create thousands of location and occupational sites that would be fully integrated with one another, according to the Newspaper Association of America.

This move is being opposed by a coalition of employment websites and associations, including NAA, ASAE, Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com, and a couple of dozen job sites. NAA submitted a letter to ICANN on July 15 urging the organization to reject the SHRM/Employ Media proposal. The coalition has retained a lawyer who has been talking to ICANN about the coalition’s opposition to the proposal. ICANN will consider the proposal at a future meeting, potentially in August.

NAA Letter to ICANN:
http://www.naa.org/docs/public-policy/NAA-ICAAN-letter_71510.pdf

Link to comments filed in opposition and support of the Employ Media proposal:
http://forum.icann.org/lists/jobs-phased-allocation/thrd3.html#00055

Link to more information about the Employ Media and SHRM effort to build out the .job platform.
http://www.universe.jobs/