FC: U.N. World Health Organization wants to regulate health websites

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

To be filed under the United-Nations-trying-to-stay-relevant-online 
department (we've seen this before at http://www.politechbot.com/p-00502.html).

See this BBC article on the WHO plan:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1021000/1021390.stm

Excerpt:

> The WHO has suggested a ".health" domain name be created as an address for 
> internet sites offering health news and advice.
> Under the plans, those sites using this domain would have to meet high 
> standards in quality and ethics.
> The ".health" domain would join the privileged list of other top level 
> domains, such as ".com" and ".org".
> If the plans go ahead, the WHO would be responsible for regulating the 
> ".health" sites.
> It would draw up policies and standards governing this sector and would 
> decide which sites would be eligible to use the domain.

This WHO press release:
http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2000/en/pr2000-72.html

Background on WHO:
http://www.who.int/aboutwho/en/rapid.htm

Criticism that WHO is biased toward regulation and has a "clearly 
predetermined political agenda":
http://www.cato.org/dailys/07-05-00.html

And this slashdot thread:
http://slashdot.org/articles/00/11/15/1334224.shtml





-------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology
You may redistribute this message freely if it remains intact.
To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------