Obama seeks action on online pharmacies domain names

US President Barack Obama has called for a meeting with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and other stakeholders to see what can be done about rogue online pharmacies peddling illegal medicines.

The initiative is being spearheaded by the White House's Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, Victoria Espinel, and the meeting is scheduled to take place on September 29.

Espinel is the author of an IPEC Strategic Plan, published earlier this year, which among a number of measures promised to crack down on the illegal Internet pharmacy trade. In particular the plan said the government would explore methods to prohibit paid advertising for online illegal drug vendors.

It also aims to bring online pharmaceutical companies operating in violation of intellectual property laws into the reach of law enforcement jurisdiction.

LegitScript, an online pharmacy verification service, said in March it had identified over 36,000 online pharmacies that did not meet its standards for certification. And in May, it exposed the activities of Internet registrars that had sold domain name registrations to illegal online pharmacies.

While the majority of registrars took action to suspend the domain names when advised they were being used for illegal purposes by LegitScript, a significant minority - including three from the US (eNom, UK2Group and Moniker), one from Russia (CentroHost) and one in the Netherlands (Realtime Register) - declined to take any action.

Meanwhile, ICANN - which has the responsibility of accrediting registrars and overseeing their activities - has been criticised for not doing enough to oversee the registrars, such as de-accrediting those which persist in this type of activity.


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