International and domestic domain name registrars (DNR) have taken down numerous anabolic steroid websites over the past 30 days, most recently Advanced-Stealth.com and Steroids-Pharmacy.com on November 14, 2008. The DNR takedowns were NOT the result of any law enforcement or government regulatory action; the DNRs apparently initiated the action on their own after pressure from organizations like LegitScript. LegitScript announced the takedowns of the steroid pharmacies as two of over 500 affected websites in the “largest internet pharmacy shutdown in history” (”LegitScript Terminates Nearly 500 Rogue Internet Pharmacies and Steroid Websites,” November 14).
Steroids-Pharmacy.com and Advanced-Stealth.com, which sold anabolic steroids, Schedule III Controlled Substances, without requiring a prescription, from overseas.
Steroids-Pharmacy.com and Advanced-Stealth.com have been two of the biggest supporters of U.S. steroid law reform and harm reduction-based steroid education.
The steroid website domains were registered through India Access, an India-based reseller of registration domain services from ICANN-accredited Public Domain Registry.
The internet domain registrar GoDaddy has started shutting down anabolic steroid-related websites under increasing pressure from a pharmacy special interest group called LegitScript.com. LegitScript.com is an internet pharmacy verification service that approves pharmacies that conform to United States federal and state laws.
The service apparently promotes the internationalization of steroid laws and prescription laws such that international internet pharmacies not subject to U.S. laws are considered illegitimate if they fail to comply. Furthermore, LegitScripts.com has requested that GoDaddy shut down websites that only provide information related to the non-medical use of anabolic steroids; in other words, LegitScripts wants GoDaddy to pull the plug on steroid-related websites that do NOT even sell anabolic steroids but just discuss the use of steroids for bodybuilding purposes.
GoDaddy recently shutdown the following steroid pharmacy websites ominously listing the nameservers as NS1.SUSPENDED-FOR.SPAM-AND-ABUSE.COM and NS2.SUSPENDED-FOR.SPAM-AND-ABUSE.COM: Read more
