Battle Over .Jobs is Growing

.Jobs debate “ends” Thursday.

I wrote last month regarding a move to open up the .jobs domain name. Right now only firms can register .jobs domains, and only with their firm name (e.g. ATT.jobs). The group behind this sponsored TLD wants to open it up, with the idea of creating a ton of (million?) job boards using the domains. From Policy.jobs:

Previously, Employ Media [which runs .jobs under contract] 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.

Essentially, .jobs has found a backdoor way to enter as an sTLD and create a structure that will allow it to operate as an open gTLD ahead of other fresh gTLDs are launched, if its plans are approved. And, much like .travel, average joe’s probably won’t be able to get their hands on the good domain names since they will be kept under an arrangement with the registry to create job boards.

Plenty of people have voiced their opinions in a public comment period that ends tomorrow. It seems that most of the opposition is coming from job board owners, who complain both of fresh competition and lack of transparency. Those in favor include some members of Society for Human Resource Management, which makes policy decisions regarding .jobs under the .jobs charter. Of course, the .jobs registry and operator Employ Media stands to profit from this move.