LegitScript

Last updated
Logo of LegitScript, LLC LegitScript Logo.png
Logo of LegitScript, LLC

LegitScript is a Portland, Oregon-based internet and payments compliance company that provides services for merchant monitoring, platform monitoring, and certification in high-risk industries. [1] The company also performs investigative analyses for government agencies around the world regarding cybercrime, and offers brand monitoring for intellectual property infringement. Some of LegitScript's partners include Google, Facebook, Amazon, Bing, and Visa. [1] LegitScript also works with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to monitor and investigate websites marketing FDA-regulated products. [2]

Contents

LegitScript has been designated as a Top Workplace in Oregon multiple times in recent years [3] and in 2019 was named to the Inc. 5000 list of most successful companies. [4]

Founding

LegitScript's founder and former CEO is John Horton, [5] who was a White House aide on drug policy issues from 2002 to 2007. [6] Scott Roth is the company's current CEO.

The company is a founding member of the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies. [7] The NABP has written that it endorses LegitScript on behalf of the government agencies that license and regulate pharmacies and pharmacists in the United States, Canada, and other jurisdictions for use "by search engine advertising programs, Domain Name Registrars, registries, payment processing companies, social media companies, and other Internet platforms to ensure that Internet platforms operate in compliance with applicable healthcare laws and regulations, and are not utilized in furtherance of the illicit sale of unregulated healthcare products". [8] In addition, some EU government agencies have referred to LegitScript as the "appropriate authority" to which rogue Internet pharmacies should be reported. [9]

Although LegitScript began its monitoring primarily in the online pharmacy and dietary supplement spaces, the company has since expanded into other high-risk areas, including transaction laundering, gambling, illicit adult content, scams and fraud, cannabidiol (CBD), content that advocates for hate or violence, and more.

Domain name registrars

In November 2008, LegitScript launched its registrar notification program and reported that it had shut down 500 "rogue" Internet pharmacies by notifying their ISPs and domain name registrars. [10] In May 2010, the company released a report regarding over 7,000 websites displaying a forged pharmacy license, indicating that it worked with 11 different domain name registrars to shut down the websites. [11] In late 2012, the company stated that it had worked with registrars to shut down over 35,000 rogue Internet pharmacy websites in the previous four years. [12]

As of early 2013, several domain name registrars explicitly state in their terms of services that they suspend and lock domain names identified as rogue Internet pharmacies by LegitScript, and outsource their abuse point-of-contact on Internet pharmacy issues to LegitScript. [13] [14] The company has stated that it works with most domain name registrars, and, in late 2012, it began publishing data showing that the websites of rogue Internet pharmacies "cluster" around a small number of registrars that LegitScript says ignore abuse notifications. [15] Several Internet pharmacy affiliate marketers have publicly discussed the importance of registering Internet pharmacy domain names with registrars that do not work with LegitScript.[ citation needed ] In submitting abuse notifications to ICANN-accredited registrars, LegitScript has authority to act on the behalf of government regulators in some countries, such as Japan. [16]

Consumer protection

In March 2010, consumer protection website SiteJabber announced that it would begin integrating LegitScript's legitimacy determinations into its Internet pharmacy ratings. [17] In May 2010, the WOT Services announced a similar initiative in which LegitScript Internet pharmacy legitimacy determinations would be integrated into its reputation rankings. [18]

Dietary supplements and designer drugs

LegitScript maintains a Healthcare Product Legitimacy program that monitors whether "dietary supplements have been the subject of regulatory action, are considered unsafe, or are marketed as miracle cures" [19] and that is also endorsed by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. [8] In its advertising policies for healthcare and medicines, Google indicates that it uses LegitScript's healthcare product legitimacy program to determine which supplements and designer drugs should be restricted from advertising. [20]

International Internet pharmacy certification

As of February 2013, LegitScript's website indicated that it had approved over 250 online pharmacy websites and documented over 48,000 "rogue" online pharmacy websites. [21] The program is also endorsed by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Advertising</span> Form of communication for marketing, typically paid for

Advertising is a marketing communication that employs an openly sponsored, non-personal message to promote or sell a product, service or idea. Sponsors of advertising are typically businesses wishing to promote their products or services. Advertising is differentiated from public relations in that an advertiser pays for and has control over the message. It differs from personal selling in that the message is non-personal, i.e., not directed to a particular individual. Advertising is communicated through various mass media, including traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, television, radio, outdoor advertising or direct mail; and new media such as search results, blogs, social media, websites or text messages. The actual presentation of the message in a medium is referred to as an advertisement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Website</span> Set of related web pages served from a single web domain

A website is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wikipedia.

A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are used in various networking contexts and for application-specific naming and addressing purposes. In general, a domain name identifies a network domain or an Internet Protocol (IP) resource, such as a personal computer used to access the Internet, or a server computer. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites and email services. As of 2017, 330.6 million domain names had been registered.

Tucows Inc. is an American-Canadian publicly traded Internet services and telecommunications company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and incorporated in Pennsylvania, United States. They are composed of three independent businesses: Tucows Domains, Ting Internet and Wavelo. Originally founded in 1993 as a shareware and freeware software download site, Tucows would shutter its downloads business in 2021. Tucows Domains is currently the second-largest domain registrar worldwide and operates OpenSRS, Ascio, and Hover.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.ae</span> Country code top-level domain for the United Arab Emirates

.ae is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) in the Domain Name System of the Internet for the United Arab Emirates. It is administered by .aeDA which is part of the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority of UAE (TDRA).

GoDaddy Inc. is an American publicly traded Internet domain registrar and web hosting company headquartered in Tempe, Arizona, and incorporated in Delaware.

WebMD is an American corporation known primarily as an online publisher of news and information pertaining to human health and well-being. The site includes information pertaining to drugs. It is one of the top healthcare websites.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.ph</span> Internet country code top-level domain for the Philippines

.ph is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the Philippines.

Domain parking is the registration of an Internet domain name without that domain being associated with any services such as e-mail or a website. This may have been done with a view to reserving the domain name for future development, and to protect against the possibility of cybersquatting. Since the domain name registrar will have set name servers for the domain, the registrar or reseller potentially has use of the domain rather than the final registrant.

1-800 Contacts Inc. is an American contact lens retailer based in Draper, Utah. The brands that 1-800 Contacts use includes Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Alcon, Bausch & Lomb and CooperVision. The company was founded as the industry's first way to buy contacts online and has since expanded to provide online prescription renewals, glasses, lens replacements, and the in-house AquaSoft Daily contact lenses brand. In 2006, its last year as a public company, the company reported net sales of US$247 million.

An online pharmacy, internet pharmacy, or mail-order pharmacy is a pharmacy that operates over the Internet and sends orders to customers through mail, shipping companies, or online pharmacy web portal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rogue security software</span> Form of malicious software

Rogue security software is a form of malicious software and internet fraud that misleads users into believing there is a virus on their computer and aims to convince them to pay for a fake malware removal tool that actually installs malware on their computer. It is a form of scareware that manipulates users through fear, and a form of ransomware. Rogue security software has been a serious security threat in desktop computing since 2008. An early example that gained infamy was SpySheriff and its clones.

Gandi SAS is a French company providing domain name registration, web hosting, and related services. The company's main office is in Paris.

WOT Services is the developer of MyWOT, an online reputation and Internet safety service which shows indicators of trust about existing websites. The confidence level is based both on user ratings and on third-party malware, phishing, scam and spam blacklists. The service also provides crowdsourced reviews, about to what extent websites are trustworthy, and respect user privacy, vendor reliability and child safety.

An internationalized country code top-level domain is a top-level domain in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. IDN ccTLDs are specially encoded domain names that are displayed in an end user application, such as a web browser, in their language-native script or alphabet, such as the Arabic alphabet, or a non-alphabetic writing system, such as Chinese characters. IDN ccTLDs are an application of the internationalized domain name system to top-level Internet domains assigned to countries, or independent geographic regions.

The online distribution of counterfeit medicines has been growing during the last decades. The role of Internet as an unregulated medicine market is the main reasons behind this phenomenon, especially the effectiveness of "spam" as a tool for advertising and promoting these products. Websites and social media are new powerful instruments that organized criminal groups could exploit to conduct their illicit businesses. The spread of this emerging threat worldwide poses a very high risk for the health and safety of unaware consumers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mozilla</span> Free and open-source software community, developer of Firefox and Thunderbird

Mozilla is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, with only minor exceptions. The community is supported institutionally by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation and its tax-paying subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation.

VetDepot is on online pet pharmacy founded in 2005 by Craig Gilmore, who also owns Gilmore & Co., Inc., a research and investment firm. Based in Encinitas, California, VetDepot sells pet medications, pet supplies, pet supplements, and other pet related products through the mail to all 50 U.S. states.

easyDNS Technologies Inc. is a Canadian Internet service provider which supplies DNS and web hosting services and operates a mail service called EasyMail. The company is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Epik</span> American web services company

Epik is an American domain registrar and web hosting company known for providing services to websites that host far-right, neo-Nazi, and other extremist materials. It has been described as a haven for the far-right because of its willingness to provide services to far-right websites that have been denied service by other Internet service providers.

References

  1. 1 2 "About". LegitScript. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
  2. ↑ "OCI Internet Monitoring Services - Federal Business Opportunities: Opportunities". www.fbo.gov. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
  3. ↑ "Top Workplaces | LegitScript". TopWorkplaces. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
  4. ↑ "LegitScript". Inc.com. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
  5. ↑ "LegitScript - Message from John Horton". Archived from the original on 2011-05-21. Retrieved 2011-05-20.
  6. ↑ "Report aims to decrease illegal steroid sales online - Mywesttexas.co…". Archived from the original on 2012-09-04. Retrieved 2008-09-04.
  7. ↑ "Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies formed; launches website | LegitScript". Archived from the original on 2019-09-25. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
  8. 1 2 3 "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-03-25. Retrieved 2013-02-17.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  9. ↑ "Illegal medicine seizures rise 19%". 29 June 2010.
  10. ↑ "InformationWeek, serving the information needs of the Business Technology Community".
  11. ↑ http://mobile.darkreading.com/9288/show/e853b3fa8f1f3b04bdbc4686e506d3cc&t=10600f69af665211f08239e28542409b%5B%5D
  12. ↑ legitscript.com
  13. ↑ https://internetbs.net/en/domain-name-registrations/termsandconditions.html
  14. ↑ "Legal Agreements". Archived from the original on 2013-07-05. Retrieved 2013-02-17.
  15. ↑ "Blog".
  16. ↑ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-01-25. Retrieved 2015-09-14.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  17. ↑ "Sitejabber & Legitscript Partner". 11 March 2010.
  18. ↑ "WOT and LegitScript Partner to Protect Web Users from Rogue Online Pharmacies". 12 May 2010.
  19. ↑ "LegitScript - Products". Archived from the original on 2013-02-06. Retrieved 2013-02-17.
  20. ↑ "Healthcare and medicines - Advertising Policies Help".
  21. ↑ "Home". legitscript.com.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.