Last week the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies (ASOP Global; www.BuySafeRx.pharmacy) presented its inaugural Internet Pharmacy Safety E-Commerce Leadership Award to two organizations during the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Joint Meeting of the Registries and Registrars Stakeholder Groups at ICANN58 in Copenhagen, Denmark, it was announced on Tuesday.

ASOP Global selected the award recipients, Rightside and Realtime Register, based on their corporate policies and practices; responsiveness to illegal online drug sellers; prevention of illegal use of domain names for illegal online drug sales; cross-industry collaboration; and public and consumer awareness efforts, explained ASOP Global’s Executive Director, Libby Baney.

“Both organizations have shown exceptional and consistent efforts to improve patient safety online by actively addressing concerns regarding illegal online drug sellers and promptly responding to reports of potential domain abuse, often within 24 hours,” Baney said. “Likewise, while both Realtime Register and Rightside have registries amassing hundreds of thousands of domains each, our award winners have a near zero count of illegal internet pharmacies utilizing their services,” she added.

“Rightside is pleased to be recognized for its ongoing efforts to shut down illegal pharmacies on both its registrar and registry platforms. The access to, and distribution of, unsafe medications to consumers without a license is a serious global public health risk and Rightside is glad to participate with other companies to address this problem,” said Rightside Vice President for Business and Legal Affairs, Statton Hammock.

“It was really great to accept this award from ASOP Global in front of all of the delegates attending the Joint Registries and Registrars Stakeholder Session as we were able to show our colleagues the other side of the issue in which many of our registries and registrars are working responsibly to ensure patient safety online,” said Realtime Register’s Compliance and Policy Officer, Theo Geurts.

Nominations for ASOP Global’s second Internet Pharmacy E-Commerce Safety Award are now open. All questions and nominations may be sent to “[email protected]”. Award recipients will be announced during ICANN63 in October 2018 in Barcelona, Spain.

About the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies – Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies (ASOP Global) is an international 501(c)(4) social welfare organization dedicated to combating illegal online pharmacies and ensuring the safety of consumers worldwide.