A preliminary report on the ICANN board meeting earlier this month shows that the decision to expand the use of .jobs Internet addresses had at least one opponent.
Of the 15 voting members of the board of the Internet addressing authority (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), 14 participated in the Aug. 5 closed, teleconference. When it came time to vote, one board member opposed the expansion, two abstained, leaving 11 in favor.
The report, which appears to have been posted Monday, doesn’t detail who abstained and who cast the “No” vote. That will have to await the official minutes, which won’t be publicly available until after the next board meeting on Oct. 28th.
The report also says little about the nature of the discussion about the request by Employ Media to issue .jobs addresses using geographic, occupational, professional, or other words (i.e. Boston.jobs, javaengineers.jobs, etc.). All it says is, “The Board discussed with staff the process taken for the proposed amendment in the .JOBS sTLD, and raised questions regarding the scope of change this amendment would have on the charter of the sTLD.”
It’s not unusual for the ICANN board to split votes or for some board members to abstain. At the same meeting it approved the .jobs expansion and the plan for making available the new names, the board split a vote over creating native language-based Internet domain extensions for Jordan, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and Tunisia. That vote was nine in favor, two opposed, and three abstentions. Another split vote occurred over paying the board chairman $75,000 a year.