US IP Rights Coordinator Advocates .Pharmacy TLD as Means of Protecting Consumers

During a recent United States Senate Committee hearing, Bruce Foucart, assistant director of the US National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, advocated the .pharmacy Top-Level Domain (TLD) as a means of protecting consumer well-being. The hearing, “Challenges and Opportunities for US Business in the Digital Age,” took place on June 15, 2016, and addressed, in part, the problem of counterfeit goods, including pharmaceuticals, being sold over the internet, often endangering consumer safety. Foucart commended new TLDs such as .pharmacy, .med, .bank, and .insurance that verify the legitimacy of their domain name registrants prior to activating their websites. “Safety seals and logos can be faked online, but the .pharmacy domain is only available to safe, legal pharmacies. It’s like baking the seal of legitimacy into the domain name itself,” Foucart said. “We in law enforcement know we can’t arrest or seize our way out of this problem, so we welcome efforts by industry like this to help us protect their customers and the economy.”