Can A Special Logo Protect Buyers From Fake Pharmaceutical Sites?

from the seems-unlikely dept

Mon, Nov 6th 2006 11:44pm — Mike Masnick

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society in the UK is preparing a plan for authorized online pharmaceutical to place a special logo on the site so that buyers know they can trust it. That sounds like a nice idea until you realize how useless it's likely to be. First of all, it's only for UK-based sites, and as the article makes clear, some of the problems are caused by people shopping around for cheaper drugs and finding them on foreign sites. Second, a logo is pretty easy to copy. This is the problem Truste has faced for years. While they claim to protect consumers, the logo is often copied and just placed on sites. While you're supposed to be able to click through and make sure that the logo is legit, too many people either don't know to do so, or don't even know what they're looking for if they do click through. It's admirable to try to protect people from fake or bad drugs purchased online, but it sounds like this particular plan is only going to make people think they're safer when they may not be.

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14 Comments

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Sohrab, 7 Nov 2006 @ 1:11am

...yes it can???...
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David., 7 Nov 2006 @ 1:48am

There is no way this will work. As in no way at all. All a fake drug site would have to do would be copy the logo, and link it to the appropriate certification, and viola! it is done, and they can safely continue scamming, possibly even easier than before.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Nov 2006 @ 1:52am

Re:
agree with David
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Nov 2006 @ 2:26am

So, on the logo, tell them to go to this site .... and check it's validity.
You can never protect everyone, but you can protect some.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Nov 2006 @ 4:52am

Re:
I think most scams would be smart enough to remove or fake the link.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Nov 2006 @ 6:09am

Well it depends on how indepth the logo is, you could have it use multipul layers in the browser to make the image and make one of the layers static to the background so that when you scrolled part of the image would stay put and the other part would scroll with you. this would help to prevent people just taking a screenshot of the image and pasting it with a link on their site.
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ebrke, 7 Nov 2006 @ 7:50am

It Is Always About Perception
Of course, it won't really make people safer, but you have to understand that IT DOESN'T MATTER. The only thing that counts is that most people will THINK that they are safer. It's modelled on the new "airline security" in the U.S.
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PhysicsGuy, 7 Nov 2006 @ 7:50am

Re: AC
It doesn't matter how "clever" you try to engineer something of the sort, it can always be copied or reversed engineered... always.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Nov 2006 @ 7:53am

Re:
ummm... except that I can browse the html for the image(s) and download/copy them to my server...
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PhysicsGuy, 7 Nov 2006 @ 7:54am

zomg... this is link hell... wtf did you do?!?!?!
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Nov 2006 @ 8:21am

Re:
...Oh come on. you think you can stop a scammer by making it hard for him to screenshot stuff? How stupid do you think these guys are?
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dijital, 7 Nov 2006 @ 9:21am

Logo?
Is the logo shown on any site yet? I'd like to have a look how they plan to do this.
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Rocko C, 7 Nov 2006 @ 1:34pm

protecting people on the net
I'm working in a IT dept and we've always said the same thing, the only way to protect people against scam like that is to educate them, trust me, we you face trouble like a customer wondering why his 5 1/2 inch floppy doesn't work and you find a CD rom in it there is no limit to stupidity. one easy way to make sure people don't get scammed, there is no safer place to buy drugs then a site that you got from your pharmacist when they got the prescription or over the phone.

I mean why trying to re-invent the wheel when you just need some common sense.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Rocko C, 7 Nov 2006 @ 1:34pm

protecting people on the net
I'm working in a IT dept and we've always said the same thing, the only way to protect people against scam like that is to educate them, trust me, we you face trouble like a customer wondering why his 5 1/2 inch floppy doesn't work and you find a CD rom in it there is no limit to stupidity. one easy way to make sure people don't get scammed, there is no safer place to buy drugs then a site that you got from your pharmacist when they got the prescription or over the phone.

I mean why trying to re-invent the wheel when you just need some common sense.
[ link to this | view in thread ]