The California based body that oversees the creation of “top level” internet domains such as .com and .org is coming under renewed pressure to agree a new domain that would signal legitimate health information websites.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is being asked by the World Health Organization and others to set out a clear timetable for agreeing new domain names after rejecting a proposed “.health” domain in late 2000. The issue is likely to be discussed when the corporation's board meets this month.
The WHO, supported by consumer groups and others, believes that a .health domain could be used to signal to users that certain sites meet standards of accuracy and safety. There are at least 10000 sites that purport to offer health information on the web.
“Some sites are simply dangerous,” said Dr Joan Dzenowagis, chief scientist for the .health project at WHO's Geneva headquarters. Some sites, for example, advocate unproved treatments for diabetes, and others sell medicines with effectively no questions asked. “You could basically buy Viagra for your cat,” she said. Health sites are also increasingly used by consumers in developing countries, whose access to other information may be limited.
The corporation rejected .health from the list of proposed new domains in 2000 mainly because the plan needed more development, Dr Dzenowagis believes. “But the idea had a lot of support from the consumer unions, and it received a good press,” she said. With health and medical sites proliferating, she said, “it is only a matter of time before .health is created.”
The WHO has no pretensions to control or regulate all health information on the web. “We don't want to, and even if we did, we couldn't do it,” said Dr Dzenowagis. But by sponsoring a .health domain that would be granted only to acceptable sites, WHO would enable users to narrow their searches.
Sceptics say that the web cannot be policed and that users are already sophisticated enough to recognise quackery. But, said Dr Dzenowagis, many sites provide just enough accurate information to appear trustworthy.
In addition to the WHO, several constituencies in the private and public sectors want the corporation to speed up its process for adding new top level domains. In particular, consumer groups are worried about “rogue” domain-name registrar companies that use a technology known as “alternative roots” to create the appearance of top level domains such as .doc. These confuse users and are costly to holders of legitimate domain names.