Stakeholders in the Health Industry Invited to Advise on Internet Best Practices

11 June 2013 – Dot Health Limited, the Gibraltar-based organisation seeking to operate a new .Health top-level domain (gTLD), today announced the creation of a Governance Council that will allow the world health community to provide input on the .Health TLD.  The Governance Council will be called upon to monitor, advise, and recommend best practices for the .Health gTLD.

The announcement comes during the application process for new generic top-level domains (new gTLDs). Nearly two thousand applications have been submitted to ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) for various strings. In creating the .Health Governance Council, dot Health Limited emphasised the importance of ensuring that key worldwide stakeholders have a voice in ensuring that the .Health gTLD meets the needs of the health sector.

It is expected that the Governance Council will be comprised of practitioners, scientists, researchers, and others involved in health industries, including not only medical health but also other areas of health.  The Governance Council will be called upon to advise dot Health Limited on best practices for the .Health gTLD, including Abuse Prevention and Mitigation (APM) Seal reporting system, intellectual property rights protection, gTLD rules, reserved second-level domain names, certification or authentication programmes, and ensuring compliance with ICANN rules.

“The .Health Governance Council will be an essential part of the .Health gTLD,” explained Iain Roache of Dot Health Limited.  “Health is a powerful and important concept.  From the beginning, we have believed that the .Health gTLD should be the premier digital space on the Internet for the health industry, and so, to accomplish this, we are calling on industry leaders to participate in the Governance Council and help shape .Health.”

Interested parties are encouraged to visit www.governancecouncils.com/health to express interest in participating.  Dot Health Limited representatives explained that expressions of interest would be accepted at this site for several months, with ongoing communications sent to interested parties prior to the Governance Council launch.  Officials also noted that ongoing Governance Council activity is subject to award of the .Health gTLD by ICANN.