The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) “a nonprofit association representing all 138 accredited US and 17 accredited Canadian medical schools; nearly 400 major teaching hospitals and health systems; and 90 academic and scientific societies” filed an objection today with ICANN against the application for the new gTLD .Health, .Medical, .Hospital, .Healthcare., .Doctor, .College, .Degree, .School, .Education and .University

The comments letters are all the same except that the new gTLD string is changed for each application.

Here is the comment filed on .medical:

“The vast majority of our members are also nonprofit organizations. ”

“Through our many programs and services, AAMC strengthens the world’s most advanced medical care by supporting the entire spectrum of education, research, and patient care activities conducted by our member institutions. AAMC and our members are dedicated to the communities we serve and steadfast in our desire to earn and keep the public’s trust for the role we play in improving the nation’s health.”

“For the reasons outlined below, AAMC believes that the delegation of the .MEDICAL gTLD is not in the best interests of the community targeted by this gTLD.

1. It is imperative that the public view .MEDICAL gTLD, and its hosted websites and e-mail addresses, as trustworthy and legitimate sources of health related information, products and services. AAMC believes that a private, for-profit commercial enterprise that is not connected to the health care community should not be entrusted with the responsibility of operating the .MEDICAL gTLD. AAMC and its members are concerned that the applicant, Donuts LLC, will operate this gTLD solely to advance private commercial interests and not in the interest of public health and safety. This will inevitably erode the public’s confidence in the health care system. We are not alone in these concerns as evidenced by the Washington Post article published September 24, 2012 titled: Donuts Inc.’s major play for new Web domain names raises fears of fraud.

2. The health care community and the general public need to be protected from a variety of fraudulent activities. We do not believe that this application provides for adequate protections such as registrant eligibility requirements or validation procedures designed to prevent bad actors from abusing .MEDICAL domain names. In the absence of such protections, AAMC is concerned with the ease with which fraudulent activity – including fake health provider websites, illegal online pharmacies, fake electronic medical records websites – could occur and result in identity theft. Further, such fraudulent activities could cause consumer confusion and damage the AAMC and our members’ reputations jeopardizing the public trust we have worked to earn and maintain.

3. AAMC and our nonprofit members are not in a position to accept the financial burden of purchasing and managing domain names in the .MEDICAL gTLD. At this time there is no need for the new gTLD as we all operate successful websites within the current space. The delegation of .MEDICAL would force us to waste time and resources registering domain names to protect our names, reputations, and the public trust. The creation of the .MEDICAL would further tax the resources of AAMC and our members and divert from efforts to heal, educate the public regarding health and wellness issues, and support research to discover cures and treatments.

For these reasons AAMC believes that delegation of .MEDICAL, in the absence of alignment with the values of medicine, would not be in the health care community’s nor the public’s best interest.”