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A call for a moratorium on the .health generic top-level domain: preventing the commercialization and exclusive control of online health information

Overview of attention for article published in Globalization and Health, September 2014
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Among the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#37 of 1,103)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (98th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (90th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
8 news outlets
blogs
4 blogs
twitter
12 X users
facebook
3 Facebook pages

Citations

dimensions_citation
8 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
51 Mendeley
Title
A call for a moratorium on the .health generic top-level domain: preventing the commercialization and exclusive control of online health information
Published in
Globalization and Health, September 2014
DOI 10.1186/s12992-014-0062-z
Pubmed ID
Authors

Tim K Mackey, Gunther Eysenbach, Bryan A Liang, Jillian C Kohler, Antoine Geissbuhler, Amir Attaran

Abstract

In just a few weeks, the Internet could be expanded to include a new .health generic top-level domain name run by a for-profit company with virtually no public health credentials - unless the international community intervenes immediately. This matters to the future of global public health as the "Health Internet" has begun to emerge as the predominant source of health information for consumers and patients. Despite this increasing use and reliance on online health information that may have inadequate quality or reliability, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) recently announced it intends to move forward with an auction to award the exclusive, 10 year rights to the .health generic top-level domain name. This decision is being made over the protests of the World Medical Association, World Health Organization, and other stakeholders, who have called for a suspension or delay until key questions can be resolved. However, rather than engage in constructive dialogue with the public health community over its concerns, ICANN chose the International Chamber of Commerce-a business lobbying group for industries to adjudicate the .health concerns. This has resulted in a rejection of challenges filed by ICANN's own independent watchdog and others, such that ICANN's Board decided in June 2014 that there are "no noted objections to move forward" in auctioning the .health generic top-level domain name to the highest bidder before the end of the year. This follows ICANN's award of several other health-related generic top-level domain names that have been unsuccessfully contested. In response, we call for an immediate moratorium/suspension of the ICANN award/auction process in order to provide the international public health community time to ensure the proper management and governance of health information online.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 12 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 51 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United Kingdom 1 2%
Qatar 1 2%
Unknown 49 96%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 6 12%
Professor > Associate Professor 5 10%
Student > Doctoral Student 4 8%
Lecturer 4 8%
Student > Master 4 8%
Other 11 22%
Unknown 17 33%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 8 16%
Computer Science 6 12%
Nursing and Health Professions 4 8%
Business, Management and Accounting 3 6%
Economics, Econometrics and Finance 3 6%
Other 9 18%
Unknown 18 35%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 104. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 03 October 2014.
All research outputs
#339,849
of 22,764,165 outputs
Outputs from Globalization and Health
#37
of 1,103 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#3,657
of 252,277 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Globalization and Health
#1
of 11 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,764,165 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,103 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 21.9. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 252,277 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 11 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its contemporaries.