Meds regulator won’t say why it gets domains suspended
The UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has declined to reveal which .uk domain names it has had suspended and the reasons for having them suspended.
In response to a freedom of information request published last week, the agency said it had 32 domains suspended in the last 12 months — it appears that refers to the 12 months to November 2021 — but declined to list them.
It said most of the domains were being used to breach the Human Medicines Regulations 2012, which regulates the sale of medicines, but declined to give specifics, citing a FOI carve-out related to ongoing investigations.
The MHRA said that it does not have a formal suspensions policy.
The agency is one of several that regularly asks .uk registry Nominet to take down domains believed to be involved in criminal behavior. The Police Intellectual Property Crimes Unit submits by far the largest number of such requests.
Vaccine agency to get more domain takedown powers next year
The UK’s health regulator is going to be added to a Nominet pilot program enabling the speedy takeover of suspected criminal .uk domains next year, according to the registry.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency will become the second government agency after the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit of the City of London Police to be added to the program.
The program is an expansion of the years-old takedown procedure coordinated between Nominet and law enforcement agencies, under which domains suspected by LEA of being used in criminal activity such as counterfeiting are promptly suspended by the registry.
In the pilot, when a domain is suspended it will bounce users to this informational image, rather than merely not resolving.
MHRA is the agency responsible for approving vaccines for, among everything else, COVID-19, so it’s bound to see nefarious activity next year as vaccines actually start hitting the market.
The news of its involvement was first announced in March as the pandemic took hold of the country but, like so much else in the UK government’s technology response to coronavirus, it looks like it’s going to be a year late and a quid short.
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