This blog is the third in a series exploring how CSIP members are getting results in the fight against rogue online pharmacies selling fake medicines. In the first part of this series, we covered ways in which our member, Google, has been fighting back against so-called “bad ads” on their search platform. In the second part, we discussed our member Microsoft (Bing)’s efforts to warn consumers about fake online pharmacies.

The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) recently released the Internet Drug Outlet Identification Program Progress Report for State and Federal Regulators: January 2016. According to the report, more than 10,668 Internet drug outlets have been identified by NABP as “Not Recommended.” Most of these websites don’t have a location listed, and offer drugs that are either foreign or not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Further, 90% appear to have affiliations with rogue networks of Internet drug outlets.

We recently commissioned a report prepared by LegitScript, titled “The Internet Pharmacy Market in 2016: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities.” The report was developed to give stakeholders an understanding of the current trends and challenges in the Internet pharmacy market. In this far-reaching report, LegitScript discussed how five of the six largest domain name registrars, including our members, GoDaddy and Rightside, have key policies to address the challenge of illegal online pharmacies (pp. 26-27). These two partners, along with other reputable registrars, comprise a super-majority of online domain registration services. With many of these registrars adopting strong policies against such rogue actors, it is fair to say that, as of today, reputable registrars act swiftly to curtail services to illicit pharmacies when they are discovered and verified to be rogue. According to LegitScript, “Most of the world’s  [nearly] 1,000 domain name registrars terminate services to [verified] ‘rogue Internet pharmacies,’ thus shutting down the websites and making the Internet safer.”

As a result of the efforts of CSIP’s Internet registrar members and the larger online registrar community, it is becoming increasingly difficult for rogue online pharmacies to effectively market their illegal services and products on the Internet. This development represents remarkable progress, but important work remains to be done. We are excited about the efforts of our registrar members in the fight against illicit online pharmacies.

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The Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies (CSIP) and our 11 member companies have the shared goal of helping address the growing problem of consumer access to illegitimate pharmaceutical products on the Internet. Continue to read this blog for updates on CSIP’s education, enforcement and information-sharing efforts.