John, Thanks for participating in this dialogue with us and providing just a bit more clarity. Alan At 31/08/2014 12:45 PM, 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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