Intellectual Property Law

Can We Learn Anything From The .JOBS TLD?

By Marty Schwimmer

.JOBS is a sponsored TLD. Wikipedia notes that:

The intended use of the domain jobs is for companies and organizations to register some version of their corporate names and use it for a site specifically aimed at those seeking employment with that company, as distinguished from general corporate and marketing sites in other top level domains such as com. For instance, asda.jobs is a site giving information about jobs available at British supermarket chain Asda. The licensed operator of the jobs domain is Employ Media LLC.

The model was questioned at the time of introduction in 2005 and adoption of .JOBS names appears to be sporadic.

No one appears to be allowed to register ACCOUNTING.JOBS for accounting jobs, nor could Craigslist, for example, register CRAIGSLIST.JOBS to advertise third party jobs.

Emply Media has now requested permission from ICANN to loosen up its registration practice for .JOBS, a move already criticized by some industry observers and others.

Full post as published by Trademark Blog on June 15, 2010 (boomark / email).