Internet Companies Fight Fake Online Pharmacies

Victoria Espinel, the White House intellectual property enforcement coordinator, announced on December 13, 2010, that major American internet companies are helping to establish a non-profit organization targeting illegal Internet pharmacies in support of White House efforts.

Victoria Espinel, the White House intellectual property enforcement coordinator, announced on December 13, 2010, that major American internet companies are helping to establish a non-profit organization targeting illegal Internet pharmacies in support of White House efforts.

Companies participating in the effort include Google, Microsoft Corp., Yahoo! Inc., MasterCard Inc., Visa Inc., American Express Co., GoDaddy.com Inc., Neustar Inc., eNom Inc. and EBay Inc.’s Paypal Inc, reported Bloomberg.

The participants are credit-card payment networks, advertisers and companies that control domain names. These are the building blocks of any online business, including illegal online pharmacies.

“It’s important that we act aggressively now before it snowballs into a bigger problem,” Espinel said. “The U.S. aims to “put a challenge to the private sector, rather than have us regulate or mandate,” reported Bloomberg.