A Brief History of the Online Pharmacy Industry

Early in 2010, Google removed the website PharmacyChecker.com from its advertisements as a way for consumers to certify U.S. and Canada-based online pharmacies. This is seen as a major step forward for the online pharmacy industry, which has come into the final stages of becoming stable and secure enough for customers to feel safe in making their purchases. However, this is not the first time that the industry has been faced with the need to change and adapted accordingly.

Throughout its existence, the online drugstore industry has taken measures to fix any problems with its services that consumers might have. Like all online businesses, it has had to adapt to the endless stream of hackers and fraud sites that have plagued the Internet since the first commercial website appeared. Online pharmacies have rapidly taken leaps and bounds to improve authenticity and security to ensure that their customers can buy medicine online without any worries.

The beginning

The first generation of online pharmacy attempts was simple and followed the basic model of commercial sites at the time. Security was less of a concern early on, so only a few basic measures were put into place. The sites sold prescription medication in most cases. The problem arose when the Food and Drug Administration issued warnings to inform consumers to avoid purchasing from such sites whenever possible. The most prominent sites responded by including rudimentary measures to verify the existence of a prescription with each order. These measures would improve in time, including the possibility of an online consultation with a doctor whom the site kept on retainer.

In 1999, the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy established their own criteria for verifying whether a website was a legitimate online drugstore or not. The program, Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites (VIPPS), has since become the major source of information for the legality and legitimacy of all online pharmacies that do business in the United States. Similar to verification sites for other industries, VIPPS provides accredited websites with seals that show that an online pharmacy has passed the verification process. In 2004, the FDA advised consumers to check websites via VIPPS for consumer safety.

That same year, concerns from the U.S. Congress about counterfeit medications being sold via illegitimate online businesses prompted the major search engines to act. In the hopes of limiting the number of chances that a consumer might search up a fraudulent site, many selected PharmacyChecker.com to verify validity. The measure was seen as effective for the time, with a single reliable site cataloging all legitimate online pharmacy sites.

The present

In the most recent times, online commerce sites have begun to implement more and more security and privacy features. Payments made by methods other than by credit card are becoming more common. Any and all official communications from an online drugstore are things that a customer can opt out of receiving. Finally, there are also advocacy groups that catalog known fraudulent sites and are lobbying the U.S. Congress to establish stricter regulations towards the industry.

There have been problems in the past, but consumer diligence and upgraded security features have made the choice to buy medicine online safer than it was before. An online pharmacy today is much more secure, and there are more ways to verify the legitimacy and safety of a site than ever before, so consumers who have done a little research can feel safe doing business with them.