Group questions if ICANN’s compliance operations are up to the task with new TLDs on the horizon.
JOBS Charter Compliance Coalition, made up mostly of job board operators, is calling into question ICANN’s commitment to contract compliance after ICANN gave a short reprieve to .jobs operator Employ Media.
ICANN sent a breach notice to Employ Media in February, giving it 30 days to cure two major breaches. The first was what ICANN calls lax rules for registering .jobs domains, and the second for a program creating tens of thousands of job boards at second level .jobs domains.
This came as a shock to Employ Media, as ICANN’s board had basically improved the latter scheme.
30 days have passed and now ICANN is giving Employ Media a reprieve and is working with the group to amend its charter to come into compliance.
JOBS Charter Compliance Coalition says that Employ Media continued to register thousands of second level domains for its job board sites even after receiving ICANN’s breach notice.
The Coalition writes:
Given ICANN’s unequivocal condemnation of Employ Media’s prohibited conduct and the ongoing detriment it is causing to members of the global Internet community, ICANN’s unwillingness to enforce even an incontrovertible case of contractual non-compliance raises significant questions about the wisdom of introducing hundreds of new gTLDs at this time. When Employ Media chose to respond by publicly accusing ICANN of duplicity and refusing to take any action to come into compliance during the initial – and ample – thirty day “cure period,” ICANN inexplicably rewarded the registry operator for its hostile response by granting it an extension until April 15, 2011.
Indeed, it seems that ICANN’s contractual compliance program is in disarray. A new leader is coming on board, but I hope they can clean it up before new TLDs launch.
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