Proposed Renewal of .JOBS TLD Registry Agreement

ICANN is posting for public comment the proposed agreement for renewal of the 2005 Registry Agreement for .JOBS which is set to expire on 5 May 2015. This proposal is a result of discussions between ICANN and Employ Media LLC (the Registry Operator for the .JOBS TLD).

The current Registry Agreement for .JOBS, like other registry agreements, provides for presumptive renewal so long as certain requirements are met. It also provides that upon renewal, changes may be made to the terms of the Agreement.

With a view to increase the consistency of registry agreements across all gTLDs, ICANN has proposed that the renewal agreement be based on the approved new gTLD Registry Agreement as updated on 9 January 2014. However, in order to account for the specific nature of the .JOBS TLD, a Sponsored TLD, relevant provisions in the 5 May 2005 Sponsored TLD Registry Agreement have been carried over to this renewal agreement.

As a result, the proposed renewal agreement for .JOBS is similar to the terms of a Registry Agreement for a new gTLD that elected for community TLD status and that is not operated by an intergovernmental organization of a government entity, except for the following provisions:

• Protection of Legal Rights of Third Parties (section 2.8 and Specification 7): processes and procedures for the launch of the TLD and initial registrations will not apply as the .JOBS TLD has been in operation since 2005;
• Continued Operation Instrument (section 2.12): this requirement will not apply to the .JOBS TLD which has been and remained in continuous operations for at least 6 years prior to the anticipated effective date of the renewal agreement;
• Obligations of Registry Operator to TLD Community (section 2.19 and Specification 7): the .JOBS TLD will be bound by its Sponsored TLD charter as carried over to Specification 12 of the proposed renewal agreement; it will not be subject to the Registry Restrictions Dispute Resolution Procedure (RRDRP) which was designed specifically for community TLDs under the New gTLD program.
• Pass Through Fees related to the Trademark Clearinghouse (section 6.4): consistently with the above provision on the protection of legal rights, .JOBS will not be subject to the payment of the Trademark Clearinghouse related fees;
• Approved Services (Exhibit A): in addition to the common descriptions of the DNS and Anti-Abuse Services, the Approved services for .JOBS includes Thin Whois (until transition to Thick Whois is complete as per the ongoing Thick Whois Policy Implementation), as well as a reference to the noncompanyname.TLD Phased Allocation Program as permitted under its Sponsored TLD Charter. It should also be noted that Employ Media will have a 9 month Implementation Grace Period to complete the transition of the technical operations of .JOBS and meet all the requirement of the proposed renewal agreement.
• Schedule of reserved Names (Specification 5): consistently with current provisions under the .JOBS Sponsored TLD Agreement, the Registry Operator will neither be subject to the reservation of all two-characters labels, nor to limitation of its use of names for the operation and promotion of the TLD to one hundred names, nor to the provisions pertaining to the protection of International Olympic Committee, International Red Cross, Red Crescent Movement and Intergovernmental Organizations names and acronyms. On the protection of IGO and IGNO names and acronyms, it should be noted that .JOBS will eventually be subject to relevant Consensus Policy, which implementation plan is currently being developed per ICANN Board Resolution 2014.04.30.05.

As part of the adaptation needed to carry over the Sponsored TLD Policies of .JOBS to the proposed renewal agreement, Specification 12 (“Community Registration Policies”) has been renamed “Sponsored TLD Policies”. It incorporates the language of the original Appendix S (applicable under the current .JOBS Sponsored TLD Agreement) with the following two modifications:

• Part IV of Appendix S (“Start-Up Plan”) was not included in the proposed renewal agreement as it is not relevant for the purpose of this renewal;
• A clarification for the avoidance of doubt was added to the description of the Phased Allocation Program for noncompany.JOBS names (Specification 12, Part IV, section C).

Posted for public comment are both clean and “redline” versions of the agreement and modified appendices as follows:

• Proposed Renewal Registry Agreement [PDF, 706 KB]
• Redline showing changes compared to the approved base New gTLD Agreement [PDF, 834 KB]

Contractual Compliance Review: As part of the renewal process, ICANN conducted a review of performance under the .JOBS Registry Agreement. Employ Media LLC was found to be in substantial compliance with their contractual requirements.