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WHO Bid To Regulate Health Sites
Andy Smith writes "This BBC story reports on efforts by the World Health Organisation [?] to improve the quality of health-related web sites. They want a new TLD -- .health -- to be introduced. All .health sites would then be regulated by the WHO. Here's the press release, which predicts that 'dot health could soon be as well known as dot com'." It's quite an issue - do you want to be able to "trust" the health sites, assuming that's what regulation means, or do you worry more about the innovation of the sites being quashed by an organization?
These are not the people who should be determining what is and is not good for you. A more valid approach would be convening an independent group of experts who would look at sites and give them their stamp of approval. They could also maintain a list of sites they considered quacky.
...
Political organizations are always tainted by their quest to increase their funding and power. If you doubt that, a close look at the EPA or the FDA should convince you rather quickly
So this group (WHO) is political and useless, but we should make another group because it would be better? How will this new group of people get funding and stay away from politics if they are rating all the medical information on the web?
You seem to be saying "these guys suck because they were appointed experts by the world" and that the solution is to appoint another group of experts by the world (just without all the bad parts).
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Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
My god, you mean WHO hasn't single-handedly solved every health problem on earth yet? For shame! They're obviously corrupt because they spend any time on tobacco while people are starving (of course, they also do stuff about the starving people, but it's not solved yet so they're obviously not doing enough!)...
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This is reminiscent of the Oklahoma land grab. The territory of Oklahoma was off limits to settlement until 12pm on a certain date. The people who wanted a piece of land lined up at the border and raced into the territory to stake their claim before someone else got there.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
This is just a certification mark institutionalized in the domain naming system. As such, it doesn't bother me so much. The validity of the certification mark is entirely dependent on the percieved trustworthiness of WHO. If they mess up and start not including good information because it doesn't come from sources they approve of, the certification mark will lose its validity.
As for the comments people are making about whether or not the Internet is authoritative... It is no more or less authoritative than any other source. Every piece of information you get needs to be picked through critically. The idea that some source or another is somehow 'official' exists because of mass broadcast media. It's a historical anomoly that I think is in the process of being rectified.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
"WHO bid to regulate health sites"
"I don't know, who bid to regulate health sites?"
"Exactly."
"Oh, exactly bid to regulate health sites?"
"No, WHO bid to regulate health sites"
"Exactly."
"Now you've got it!"
--
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Just like you can't call your local GNC store a health facility and you can't claim that the products they sell can make you healthy then sites who don't want to be subject to the regulation wouldn't opt in to that domain. OTOH sites that do would have a defacto baseline certification like a seal of approval, for what it's worth. I think this whole topic has more to do with services than sites. So for example the eating disorder treatment specialist I saw on the news and who handles all his patients online only would have to certify into the .health domain in order qualify. By extension you would have all of your financial dealings through intermediaries in the .health domain such as HMO's <keeping with the myth that HMO's have anything to do with health, wink> and so on. Of course all of this implies some kind of audit and policing to insure compliance.
First, this violates the first Amendment (not that the UN cares, but people in democracies should be concerned about attempts to regulate any content).
Second, intelligent people do disagree on medical issues. For instance, herbal remedies or chiropractic medicine. Some say it's quackery, and others say it works, and shouldn't be banned just because the mechanism by which it works hasn't been understood yet.
Third, the whole value of the internet is its freedom. ANYONE can make a web site. But if the WHO is going to regulate anything, they will have to have prior approval. If they do, that pretty much bans all 'unofficial' health web sites. If they don't, that just guarantees that hospitals, companies, doctors and other credentialled providers have a huge regulatory hurdle to jump through, when the quacks and con men don't.
Really, what does this accomplish which the WHO can't do already with a gif, a review committee and a 'seal of approval'. If they like a web site, just give it the seal and the right to use the trademarked gif.
Answer: Noone cares what the WHO does or thinks. By getting the force of law behind them (through ICANN's power over TLDs), they are hoping to grab legitimacy and importance by force-- when they certainly haven't earned it.
Wouldn't the best way to do this be with an SSL certificate from the WHO? Provided browsers could present this certificate in a way that ordinary users understand.
:-))
(Hey, Rob sneaked in another reference to the WHO on Slashdot
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Assuming that the WHO takes the time to be impartial about stuff at the edges of knowledge (as in "we have no clue why this works, and we haven't entirely proven that it *does* work, but we're pretty sure it's not going to hurt you"), this would be a Very Good Thing. There is an ungodly large amount of health misinformation on the net, and most of the sites that have true scientific data force you to pay or be affiliated with an institution to access it.
.health, it's probably right; with other stuff, be careful." It'll probably be turned down, following the same precedent as .xxx, but I wish it wouldn't be.
Being able to simply look at a domain name and know "this is solid peer-reviewed stuff" would be great, and it'd be even better to be able to tell patients "If it comes from
As long as they don't try to shutdown health related websites that aren't in the .health TLD, more power to them. Most people are intelligent enough to decide if they want FDA approved drugs, or if they're willing to do their homework and try alternative medicines, why not the same thing for web sites?
Never ask a geek why, just nod your head and slowly back away. -Rob Malda
The Rolling Sttones are going to regulate all the websites by all the drug companies.
All the best,
--Bob
"alternative" is a bad name because it implies that you have to do one or the other. Many of the non-wacko practitioners of such fields as herbalism, accupressure/puncture, massage, etc now refer to their practice as "complementary" or "suplementary". This sort of use is supported by many mainstream doctors as well, with the understanding that you have to tell your herbalist what "regular" medicines you're on, and your doctor what herbs you're taking. It's all chemicals, whether its produced in a medical plant or a medicinal plant. (ok, that pun probably failed miserably, I was trying to play off of plant=green thing, herb, vs plant=manufacturing building.)
Note to the orriginal poster - what the hell are you talking about? WHO is not the AMA, and from what I have seen, has a broad yet appropriately scientific attitude on alternative/complementary medicine. And when did the WTO come into this? Lose the ultra-independant mindset, a large organization dedicated to world health acting as a gatekeeper for all the BS out there is a good thing, and the snake oil peddlers can still hang out in .com making folks like you believe them even more because "the medical establishment is afraid of our challenge to their power, and refuses to let our wisdome be heard!" What a ripe load of BS.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
Excellent point. They, or the AMA or FDA or whoever I choose to trust, could also create an "approved" branding scheme with a trademarked graphic and have a page of links to approved sites. Having a single, largely unaccountable bureaucracy have control over a domain is unnecessary.
Really? I think most people would want to find out more about any group that they were going to trust with their lives. ;-p
Bet you'd trust Jeb Bush to declare an election result, too
http://fsfeurope.org/
I mean, I'm opposed to any new TLDs.. but beyond that.
This is not conspiracy.. this would actually not be bad (if I didn't disagree with the concept of adding new tld's in the first place).
Nothing is stopping them from doing this under who.int! or getting health.int up! After all, they are the world health organization!
The idea of 'okaying' things is just fine (ever read the Oceania constitution? Same idea). There is absolutely nothing wrong with an organization giving it's approval to many sites, and telling the public what that approval means.
So long as they don't try to eradicate sites that DON'T want their approval, I say it's perfectly fine.
This already happens to a degree. You can try alternative medacines if you want (kind of hard if the treatments you want require prescription drugs though). You do not HAVE to go to the health-board approved people. You only have to understand the difference.
I think this is a fabulous idea. Why? Because anytime you go to a site in the .health domain you can be confident that you're getting medical information that agrees at least in part with the opinions of the medical establishment. As much as we gripe about doctors and HMOs and other features/bugs of Western medicine, they do a pretty decent job.
.com or .org or .ws or any other TLD they choose. Perhaps we can even form a new gTLD, .ill, for health-related sites that aren't WHO-sanctioned. =]
.health site is guaranteed to contain valid medical knowledge, does not imply that a non-.health site is guaranteed not to contain medical knowledge. That's one hell of a fallacy. If WHO were proposing to regulate all health websites, I'd be up in arms. But they're simply proposing to carve out a hunk of the DNS namespace and set it aside in the name of conservative medicine. If I open my own health website under a different TLD (sex-prevents-heart-disease.com?) and it's popular enough and useful enough, then its domain name really won't matter.
So what does this mean for health sites that the WHO won't sanction? Are they out of luck? Certainly not! They can set up a beautiful website under
Seriously--the fact that a
Gee, good thing WHO isn't the US, isn't it (rolls eyes). I hate to break your paranoid bubble, but WHO is an international organisation (first hint : the W stands for "world" not "wow the United States is great and noone else knows anything) and draws heavily from European nations (where midwifery is the norm). And the "medical establishment" isn't as monolithic as you seem to think, even in the US. For instance, if you're smart (or lucky) the midwives you worked with were CNWs or certified nurse midwives. They are part of the medical establishment, even if they argue with other parts. There are also obsetricians who work with midwives in case a high risk condition emerges.
Anyway, the worldwide "medical establishment" has eliminated smallpox, decreased the danger of polio and generally improved the lives of millions of people. Maybe you shouldn't insult thousands of dedicated people just because you had a bitchy OB/GYN.
Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
I don't understand your logic. Because traditional modern medicine doesn't have all the answers they can't have a TLD?
.health sites (to some extent). If you don't trust the WTO, than just ignore the .health sites.
.gov, so I can go to irs.gov and d/l my tax returns without having to worry if irs.gov is REALLY the irs's web site or not.
The TLD will just mean certified by the WHO. If you trust the WTO you can trust
For instance I don't trust the government to tell me the truth about a lot of issues, but I'm still glad there's a
http://overwhelmed.org
Since, if you don't agree with WHO, you don't have to be in .health. After all, no one seriously thinks that .mil violates the 1st amend since it's restricted to US military? Or .edu being restricted to schools?
Best Slashdot Co
...and it sure would be nice to know that .sex and .xxx domains really will be qualified smut, not just the head of some high profile actress cut-and-pasted onto another body.
Haven't these guys ever heard of a contract? Someone infringes on your service mark, and you can lay the smackdown upon them in the court system. These guys obviously just want a little more ink in the newspaper than would be given if they created a seal of approval.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
will probably always be around as long as there is progress in real(?) medicine.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Well, trying to get a TLD out of it under their own control is very ambitious, but if I read their project right, it could be worth a TLD to do it (or it might not).
.org, not a .com. We're talking about the WHO here after all, not a pharmaceutical company.
If they can manage to get enough sites under their TLD, that means thta they can offer a lot of information to a lot of subjects. Reliable information on a subject as important as your health and those of your loved ones, how important is that?
How many go to the library to consult medical dictionnaries when they have a health problems? Most importantly, how many people in the general population, in the global population?
To give them an easy way to get the information would be a big bonus. And existing sites could probably get their sites there rather quickly (if they can get the approval done in a reasonable manner). That gives a seal of approval and trust for people who might not know a lot about the subject.
This kind of things would be inconvenient to put under a subdomain name I would think. It is more combersome, and more difficult to reach the whole population as easily like that. BTW, if that is ever done, it would be under a
Of course there are all the alternative medecine sites, but they don't want to remove those, only put the "right sites" on the spotlight. Comparatively it could harm those sites if they can't get in there, but in this I'd side with the WHO. You don't really want to be using hemeopathy to treat your cancer. I'm fine with people using it, but I would sure never recommend it to anyone like that. Not when I don't know the active principles and how it works and study thereof.
And if there's any organization who could and should put something like that off, I think it's the WHO, I hope they manage to get the project going (and hope they will even if they can't get their TLD).
This is exactly right, or at least part of it is. I don't think the .com part is central.
.kids or .porn -- the idea that people who want to distribute some sort of rating or trust info ought to be able to use TLDs to do it. The problem with that idea is that there are countless possible ratings systems that we might need to distribute, and it really doesn't make sense to have too many TLDs.
But I agree completely about the hierarchical nature of the DNS system. The WHO should use subdomains under their own name -- who.org, or whatever.
This is really the same issue as using
It makes more sense to look at the existing systems to deliver rating information, ranging from SSL's hierarchical key certification, to the W3's PICS standard to just putting a gif on a site that says it's certified, seeing where the shortcomings are, and coming up with a consistent, elegant, reasonable, and non-authoritarian way to deliver rating information consistently.
Shut up, be happy. The conveniences you demanded are now mandatory. -- Jello Biafra
This particular move, not only limiting the .health domain to health-related info, but to also have the information scrutenized by WHO, has several benefits; users know that the information there should be factual or otherwise they have a way to point out disputed information to some organization in order to have that information fixed or removed. What will probably happen is that sites that do go to .health will be generally more high-quality sites with better standards for information and will make sure to self-regulate themselves to keep them that way, and any site that is not doing so will be challenged by the WHO for why it should keep the .health domain.
I dunno how much it will catch on as with .com, however; webmd.com, for example, is well established and I doubt they want to give up their name (though I bet they'd grab a webmd.health domain).
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Health information is unique. It makes sense to have some form of objective evaluation of sites providing healthcare information.
If that's your goal that the WHO is one of the worst choices you could make. They are a political organization with a political agenda, and as such their conclusions should be considered suspect, if not highly suspect.
A couple of years ago they did a very comprehensive, well designed study on the issue of Second Hand Smoke. Much to their displeasure and horror, they found that it caused no harm at all. They tried to bury the report. When the British press, though constant hounding, embarrassed them into publicizing their results, they issued a press release. In the body of the release they admitted that the tiny increases they found were not at all statistically significant, but they outright lied in the headline.
More information is available here.
These are not the people who should be determining what is and is not good for you. A more valid approach would be convening an independent group of experts who would look at sites and give them their stamp of approval. They could also maintain a list of sites they considered quacky.
Political organizations are always tainted by their quest to increase their funding and power. If you doubt that, a close look at the EPA or the FDA should convince you rather quickly
-- Get Smartenized! Read the Hittman Chronicle
I think health information would be fine content for a .health site. Marketing hoopla and unsubstantiated information could be ruled out (as in no Bob dole talking about E.D.).
Think about it with "diet suppliments" in the US. There are plenty of substances that claim to help you burn fat or put on muscle that all kinds of people SWEAR work, but most of them say "these claims not investigated by the FDA." It doesn't mean they don't work. It just means the FDA hasn't qualified the claim.
If the WHO is going to do some kind of effort to set forth a qualification scheme, more power to them! At least you could then go to a .health site and know that it was approved by the WHO.
If you don't trust the WHO or you think it's evil, great, ignore the approval. There's nothing that says you have to think that a .gov site has any kind of legislative authority over you, or that a .edu has any business teaching the masses, but for lots of people, those qualifications are significant and give the viewer some kind of trust in the information on those pages.
Quite frankly, .com, .org and .net mean nothing to me, other than "we were lucky enough to find a domain we could buy."
the cancelation of Dr. WHO. It was part of a secret deal to resolve a trademark dispute with the World Health Organization.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
Nitpick, perhaps, but this proposal is not for the good of the internet, it is to promote health. The outside influences should be restricted to promoting health rather than one groups economic interests, but I don't think we need a broad coalition of sys admins and router managers involved.
Its also funny that so many people are just assuming that alternative and complementary therapies will be ignored, instead of recomending that their advocacy groups try to get involved. Instead of assuming that chiropactic medicine, for example, will be completely excluded, the question should be "is a recognized chiro group getting involved to help seperate good chiro from bad chiro?" Unhelpful or dangerous alternative practitioners are a greater danger to the field than mainstream medicine could ever hope to be.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
The "con" side was led by a fellow student. The student just kept repeating the same thing: "look at the evidence, then make up your own mind." I didn't take his advice. Instead, I assumed that if the WHO was advocating fluoridation so strongly, then it must be good. The majority of people seem to have thought the same: the "pro" side won the referendum.
In the last few years the official story on fluoridation has changed. Fluoridation might be far more dangerous than was supposed at the time of the referendum. Children's toothpaste is now with very low--or no--fluoride, for that reason. The safety level for adults is not really known. In fact, at the time of the referendum, little was actually known about fluoride safety levels. Yet the WHO claimed that its proposed level of fluoridation was certainly safe for everyone.
There is a good "con" site at http://www.npwa.freeserve.co.uk/. This site is an important part of the campaign that has kept Britain 90% fluoridation-free.
I don't really know for sure, but I suspect that if the same situation existed today, the WHO would prevent a "con" website from going up under .health.
The WHO can make mistakes, there is lots of internal politics, and there is a great deal of conservatism in what is called "medical science". The WHO will face up to none of that on their own.
Another good example is with acupuncture. It is only in the last few years that proper experiments have been done, showing that stimulation of acupuncture points affects related areas of the brain. For example, stimulating the acupuncture point associated with hearing affects the part of the brain associated with hearing. And stimulating nearby skin has no effect. (There is an excellent summary article in The Economist here and another good summary from Britannica here ). Again, although the WHO might accept such sites now, they would likely not have done so ten or more years ago.
If the WHO really wants to encourage health, how about a special seal/label/badge that could be put on websites: "This cite certified by the World Health Organisation"? Such a seal would have many advantages, and avoid the main disadvantages, of a regulated .health TLD.
>Creating .health would set a precenende for
.biff. The person who invented the naming heirarchy had a dog named Biff, and now Biff is implicitly immortalized in every internet address name in the world.
>hundreds and hunderds of toplevel domains.
This is a little known fact, but there is only *one* top level domain in existence. Since every address has that single top level domain, it's implicit and we don't have to type it. *.com, *.org, *.net, and the upcoming *.health are actually subdomains of that one toplevel domain that exists. You can't actually type the toplevel domain on addresses because all the routers have been optimized to reject address with the redundant toplevel information. But, just for the record the official toplevel domain that is implicit in every internet address is
Believe it or not!
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
About the only place you have real "facts" is within mathematics, and there you have a carefully specified list of premises. The Pythagorean theorem is true within, and only within, the carefully defined world of Euclidian geometry.
When it comes to medicine, things are much trickier. It's virtually impossible to say that medicine X curse ailment Z. The most that can usually be said is that medicine X appears to help ailment Z in Y% of cases. Does aspirin cure a headache? No. Does it provide relief for the pain of a headache? For a large percentage of people, it provides some relief. Does penicillin kill bacteria? We used to think so. But what about the new resistant strains that are showing up?
It's easy to prove a fact wrong. You only have to find one case. To prove it true, you have to show that it's true in ALL cases. This is a much more difficult task.
All of that being said, I have no real problem with the proposal so long as there is no attempt to force ALL medical web sites to use the .health TLD.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
The World health organisation is one of the most significant organisations to encourage the use of dhmo as a medicine. While the health benefits seem to last for a couple of days, they have totally ignored the dangers.
DHMO has been found in cancers, in vast concentrations in endangered species, and has been known to cause vomiting. Excessive use is dangerous. WHO makes no effort to warn people of its dangers, yet does seek to make it available as much as possible. Tis is simply irresponsible
Whst's wrong with .health.com? Why can't they just create a subdomain? Why do they need a topplevel domain? The system was intended to be hierarchical, not flat. And health-industries are industries, aren't they? Should be under .com!
/. that a good idea might be to have the price on domains raise with the numbers of domains an organisation wants - that way, the system would force hierarchy. I like the idea, but it is to easy to work around - just have an employee register the domain name on him/her, or a daughter-company...
Btw, someone at some moment suggested here on
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
There are an awful lot of websites covering an awful lot of fields that appear to be "authoritative" at a casual glance, but that are actually riddled with inaccuracies, bias and half-truths.
Admittedly, not all of them are as downright dangerous as giving out dodgy health information, but people still need to learn to be critical of the information they may find on the web. "I saw it on the Internet" is still used by some people as an indicator that information is somehow more authoritative than that received from other, possibly more reliable, sources. Just look at some of the fantastical assertions that appear in the average day's load of spam, from "This cannot be considered spam as it is in accordance with House Bill 1618" upwards, for a fine example of this.
One of the problems with the Web these days is that nifty graphical design is still considered superior to accuracy of information, and J. Random Luser needs to work out that frames and Shockwave don't necessary mean that a site's an authority on its subject.
The WHO is a well-respected organization and I should like to suggest that the title assigned to the post is horridly inaccurate ("WHO Bid To Regulate Health Sites"). First of all, if such a dot-health Top-Level-Domain (TLD) were to be created, they would only be able to regulate sites under that domain, or whatever provisions are agreed upon.
There is a wealth of inaccurate medical information, of which there are many instances where "findings" are very unfounded, often in the name of a commercial investment. If the WHO were to certify information as either accurate, opinion, whatever .. this would greatly decrease the chances of the many gullible people being exploited by commercialism -- not to mention people need to educate themselves, talk to doctors, and stop being so damn ignorant. Nothing can replace the advice of a doctor with whom you respect .. be s/he a respected medical doctor you don't personally know but much about or your own doctor.
In general, when we (as Slashdot readers/writers/editors/admins/moderators .. including myself, admitedly) complain about something being blatently inaccurate, we consider the stupidity of the creator and frown upon any attempts to censor this information, no matter how inaccurate. The WHO is attempting to establish a system whereby it is able to certify certain information or opinions or whatever. They are not censoring anybody: .com,.net,.org are theoretically "free" from censorship by everybody. They are basically allowing the credible sources in.
I would like to apply a censorship theory often used when dealing Internet access in Libraries and apply it to this situation, where the logic speaks for itself: A library may not arbitrarily decide against acquiring a book or dismissing a book from the public shelves. Likewise, some claim, the Library should not arbitrarily filter certain key words or other things from the internet, since they've basically acquired the entire Internet, as they might have with books. As stated above, the WHO would probably have qualifications for obtaining a .health site, where the resident would maintain the site as agreed to.
What are the odds that any "medical marijuana" .health
information sites will ever be allowed a
domain, for instance?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
That's how I read it too, except my mind went directly to "WHO let the dogs out -- WHO! WHO! WHO! WHO!"
--
Be a bloody good thing if homeopathy gets banished from the web because it's a pile of crap, but it's not going to happen. This is just a proposal for a way to allow you to have some confidence (or otherwise) in the standard of medical advice sites are giving you. I support it.
Alternative medicine is a weird name anyway. Isn't acupuncture now used by lots of doctors anyway? When does something stop being called 'alternative'?
BTW, what's ROlfing?
---
Note: This is NOT a flame. I really feel this way.
I agree with the poster above. People DO need to practice discretion in what they read on the web.
That said, why in the hell do I need a UN agency to tell me which sites are factual? And what does oversite mean? Does WHO get to tell the site what they can and cannot post? Anyone ever hear of the first amendment in the US? Fine, if the rest of the world wants WHO to censor their health information, let them have it. But in the US, we have the right to publish what and when we want, as long as it's not libelous, inciting riots, etc.
I think as a consumer, I can make an informed decision as to where I get my medical information. I don't need UN bureaucrats filtering/approving/officially stamping medical info for me.
I mean, what's next, the UN's WAO (World Auto Organization) that will have censorship rights over any auto-related site?
God, people are sheep. Always looking for someone else to tell them what's safe, what to do, what to say, what not to say.
EMUSE.NET
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
Health information is unique. It makes sense to have some form of objective evaluation of sites providing healthcare information. They may not mean this form or proposal is appropriate and not that I am supportive of censorship. You should be free to claim anything you want on the web. But, if a comittee of unrelated physicians disagrees or supports your results, then they should have the right to say so, and if I ran a website, I'd want to advertise that fact. Making this international could really help a lot.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
They could just as easily establish themselves as a powerful Internet presence simply by designing a very useful health-related website of their own. They could then "regulate" what other websites will be granted hyperlinks from their own.
This whole notion of an entire top-level domain being regulated by a global government strikes me as yet another grab for power. They wish to control what individuals around the world may see, hear, and think.
HJ
-- A New World, Unordered http://www.anwu.org/
As with everything else online, telling what is real and what isn't is next to impossible for someone without expert knowledge in the field. Just look at some of the hoaxes that have fooled thousands of the more gullible users, and they are relatively unsophisticated. People tend to believe what they read, especially when it's dressed up in a respectable looking webpage.
When it comes to health, a site that is pushing incorrect information, either through malice or incompetance, is endangering people's lives, and in much the same way as shouting fire in a theatre is illegal, it should be punished to the full extent of the law.
Having a WHO-approved TLD would mean that people could be confident that the advice they are getting is at the very least accurate and safe. It's one thing moaning about porn sites taking misspellings of people's names, but having people's lives put in danger is a whole order of magnitude different.
I think this is a great idea. I can't think of any reason to oppose it.
Jon Erikson, IT guru
The change it had to come. We knew it all along. We were liberated from the fold, that's all. And the world looks just the same, and history ain't changed. Cause the banners were all flown in the last war.
Yeah, meet the new boss... same as the old boss.
-Chris
...More Powerful than Otto Preminger...
Read again, bucko. Nobody's saying they'll "banish" alternative medicine sites from the Web. They just want to regulate the .health TLD, that's all. Must everything be the fucking end of the world on Slashdot? Jeez!
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
There is innovation. Many slashdotters may not care, but for those of use who need this sort of information international regulation doesn't sound cool.
Despite the professions arrogant claims, modern medicine does not know everything. What causes CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome)? Is it physical or mental? A combination? What is the best way to deal with it?
That is a real concern for millions of people (sufferers and families), and virtually no "facts" are known about it. What you would call "bogus," reports that have not gone through the wonderfully-quick process that is anything WHO, are useful. Being able to find a report from Israel that showed a x% remission rate for ages y-z was a godsend. Being able to show that report to my doctor, who said he never heard of any remissions, was more wonderful than you could believe.
One of the internet's greatest benefits is allowing patients to learn so much about what ails them. To the patients who don't blidnly trust, but want to learn all the facts, the freedom of information on the internet is fantastic.
Is everything on the web gold? Of course not. But is regulation by an bloated, international treaty organization the answer? You seem to think so.