WHO To Fight for '.health' Suffix

GENEVA (AP) â€” The World Health Organization expressed disappointment Friday at an Internet board's rejection of its proposal for a new ''.health'' tag for Internet addresses and pledged

Friday, November 17th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

GENEVA (AP) â€” The World Health Organization expressed disappointment Friday at an Internet board's rejection of its proposal for a new ''.health'' tag for Internet addresses and pledged to fight the decision.

The U.N. health agency's proposal â€” which it argued would bring faster and more reliable results for people seeking health information online â€” was among 47 applications for new suffixes considered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

At a meeting Thursday in Marina del Rey, California, ICANN approved seven new suffixes, among them .info for general information and .biz for businesses, to join .com, .net and .org as generic suffixes available worldwide.

But, steering clear of content regulation, it rejected proposals such as .kids for children, .xxx for adults and the WHO plan for prescreened health sites.

``WHO is extremely disappointed by the decision,'' spokesman Gregory Hartl said. ``We feel that it would have been a great benefit to consumers for guaranteeing the quality of health and medical information on the Web.''

``We are looking into the reasons why the decision did not go in our favor and we will be doing everything to take recourse against this decision,'' Hartl added. He did not specify what exactly WHO would do to appeal it.

At present there are more than 10,000 health sites on the Internet. Users have no way of finding their way through them and have no guarantee about the accuracy or reliability of the information, WHO said.

WHO is particularly concerned about the proliferation of ``Web doctors'' offering the services of hugely varying quality. The agency had said it would work with governments, medical associations, consumer groups, the health industry and others in setting and policing the standards.