[At-Large] News on the .health TLD allocation

[Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond]

Dear John,

thank you very much for your explanations. Very helpful indeed.
Kindest regards,

Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond
ALAC Chair

On 31/08/2014 19:45, John Horton wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> Just thought I'd jump in on this. While I don't want to deign to speak for
> .HEALTH (or .PHARMACY), since we'll be involved in the monitoring, thought
> it might be helpful to explain the envisioned approach, and also how
> LegitScript's monitoring program works.
>
> Basically, the general philosophy is that anything that's currently okay in
> the offline world is going to be permitted online as well. It's not
> intended to be more or less restrictive, but just to reflect what's already
> required as per existing healthcare-related regulations. Obviously, it
> depends on the product in question: prescription drugs tend to have
> stricter requirements than supplements, for example, in most countries.
>
> What's restricted or permitted also varies by country or local
> jurisdiction. One important point is that it's not US-centric, as one
> poster seemed to think could be the case. If the website is offering
> products to Japan, for example, then they have to adhere to whatever
> Japanese laws and regulations apply to the sale of those products. If they
> are selling to resident of India, then they have to follow those laws and
> regulations. But unless they are shipping drugs or other regulated products
> to the US, they wouldn't be bound by US laws and regulations. (If a
> healthcare product merchant is legal in three jurisdictions but shipping to
> five jurisdictions, then there is a really easy answer: stop shipping to
> the two jurisdictions where you aren't operating legally.) That's no
> different than what's required in the offline world as well, e.g., for a
> brick-and-mortar pharmacy. On our end, we already monitor healthcare
> merchants in multiple jurisdictions around the world (China, Korea, Japan,
> Ireland, France, Germany, Indonesia, Thailand, Canada...the list goes on),
> applying the laws and regulations that are appropriate to each
> circumstance, so we see it as pretty straightforward. Obviously, it would
> be not only impractical, but also unfair, to require a healthcare merchant
> in Sweden legally selling to Scandinavian jurisdictions to comply with US
> laws and regulations (in fact, it would be impossible).
>
> Unfortunately, the online healthcare space is one that does benefit from
> some monitoring -- there have been multiple deaths and adverse events from
> fake drugs, tainted supplements, that sort of thing. So, both of those TLDs
> are intended to be a safe space where Internet users can know that the
> seller is operating in accordance with the laws and regulations that they
> are supposed to, just by looking at the TLD. That seems to us to be a good
> thing. But, the Internet is a global space, and it's definitely not
> US-centric or based on any one countries' laws and regulations -- rather,
> it's jurisdictionally flexible based on the circumstance in question.
>
> Hope that helps to clarify.
>
> John Horton
> President, LegitScript
>
>
>
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-- 
Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD
http://www.gih.com/ocl.html