Three big registries will take down opioid domains for US govt
Verisign, Public Interest Registry and Neustar (now part of GoDaddy) will suspend domain names being used to illegally sell opioids under a pilot scheme with the US government.
The Food and Drug Administration announced this week that this new “trusted notifier” program will go into effect for 120 days.
When the FDA finds a site suspected of selling opioids illegally, it will notify the registry as well as the web site’s owner and hosting provider.
The registries will then be able to decide whether to suspend the domain or not. It’s voluntary.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration will also take part in the project.
Verisign runs .com and .net, PIR runs .org and Neustar runs .us, .co and .biz.
Opioids are legal, pharmaceutical pain-killers derived from opium. They’re ridiculously addictive and account for as many drug overdose deaths in the US as heroin, but are over-prescribed by US doctors.
It’s not the first time registries have agreed to trusted notifier programs. Some new gTLD registries have deals with the movie and music industries to suspend domains involved in copyright infringement.
The announcement comes just a few weeks after ICANN rejected a deal that would have seen PIR create a community oversight body with responsibilities to monitor domain-suspension policies in .org.
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