ICANN and Health Domains - Request for Action

Dear colleagues and friends, IMIA General Assembly members -

you will recall that, at the IMIA General Assembly meeting in Copenhagen, in August 2013, we discussed the issue of new Internet health domains, in particular the .health domain. The Board, and especially Prof. Antoine Geissbuhler, as our Liaison Office to the WHO, reported on activity in this area, and the GA supported further activity.

Following a meeting attended by the IMIA President, and including representatives from several NGOs. held in Geneva in December, we have sent a letter to the ICANN Board expressing our concerns about the allocation of new Internet domain names, especially those relating to health, and urging ICANN to "delay the allocation of .health and other health-related names until adequate safeguards, and baseline conditions for their implementation, are in place." Several other NGOs have sent, or will be sending, similar letters.

We would like to encourage IMIA member organisations, and individuals, to also send similar letters to ICANN expressing their concerns and urging delay and reconsideration of the issues. We also ask you to contact your national Ministries or Departments of Health, and other organisations as you feel appropriate.

A suggested core draft is provided below - but please feel free to add to, or modify, any letter that you send. If you are able to send a letter, we should be grateful if you would send a copy to the IMIA Office (email: imia@imia-services.org)

BEGIN DRAFT

Dr Stephen Crocker, Chair, ICANN Board
steve.crocker@icann.org

Mr Fadi Chehadé, President and CEO, ICANN
fadi.chehade@icann.org

Mr Cherine Chalaby, Chair, New gTLD Program Committee
cherine.chalaby@icann.org

Cc: newgtld@icann.org   

12025 Waterfront Drive, Suite 300
Los Angeles CA 90094-2536 USA

Sent by email


Dear Sirs

SUBJECT: Safeguards for Health Domains
 
On behalf of [insert organisation name] I am writing to call your attention to the critical need to ensure appropriate safeguards for the health-related Internet domain names.

[Please add information about your organization here - mission, geographic scope and membership]

Health information, data, products and services have an important and unique status on the Internet. It is imperative that operators of health domains manage them for and in the public interest. In the context of allocation of the new Internet domain names, the governmental advisory group to the ICANN has proposed a set of generic safeguards for health-related names and stressed that they “may require further targeted safeguards”.  The safeguards are inadequate for health and do need significant revision. Strengthening them will not only address the concerns of the community, but will also enable providers and businesses to flourish in a safe and assured environment.

You have seen the many concerns expressed by the health community on .health alone, one of the most contested names, in the form of GAC advice, public comments, community objections, and objections submitted by ICANN’s independent objector. The concerns raised so far have not been sufficiently addressed, yet the applications are proceeding.

We therefore call on the ICANN Board to delay the allocation of .health and other health-related names until adequate safeguards, and baseline conditions for their implementation, are in place. Towards that end, it is essential that ICANN relies on the health community to lead the process to produce a new set of safeguards for health, to be discussed with the ICANN Board at the London ICANN meeting in June, 2014.

END DRAFT


Some background information on the issues, and current status, is at:
http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2000/en/pr2000-72.html
http://icannwiki.com/index.php/.health
http://icannwiki.com/index.php/Community_Objection
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(13)62215-1/fulltext
(Thanks to Dr Amado Espinosa for collating these)

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact the IMIA Office. We will provide further updates through the IMIA monthly newsletter - unless it is sufficiently urgent that we need to send a similar additional email to you. If you are able to send a letter, we urge you to do so as soon as possible.

 

International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA)
c/o Health On the Net
Chemin du Petit-Bel-Air 2
CH-1225 Chêne-Bourg
Geneva, Switzerland
Tel:+41-22-3727249


Skype: imia-office
Email: imia@imia-services.org
Web: http://www.imia.org

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