White House Wants to Meet with Registrars and ICANN Over Counterfeit Drugs
Friday, August 27th, 2010
Obama administration wants to address illegal online pharmacies.
The White House has called for a meeting with domain name registrars, registries, and ICANN to discuss rouge online pharmacies.
According to an email obtained by Krebs on Security, White House Senior Adviser for Intellectual Property Enforcement Andrew J. Klein sent a letter earlier this month urging companies to send a representative to a meeting on September 29.
A number of advocacy groups have called out registrars for failing to control the activity on domain names registered with them, and eNom in particular has been singled out. Domain name registrar Go Daddy has actively lobbied Congress for controls on online pharmacies.
While few would argue counterfeit drugs are a good thing, it’s a shame this action has to come on intellectual property grounds as opposed to consumer protection.
Further Reading:
In many cases the only viable means to taking action against illegal activity is going to be based on intellectual property..
If I recall correctly Microsoft and a few other companies won a few actions against spammers due to TM / IP breach ..
If registrars agree to any type of enforcement they will be setting a dangerous precedent.
Where would it end? It’s a very slippery slope.
Are registrars going to determine what is a rouge pharmacy what isn’t.
This is just down right stupid.
We have a Wash.DC address and we didn’t receive an invitation.
