We’ve not been able to secure any clear confirmation of the details of the cases cited by RXL (one of our top recommended affiliate programs), but this well respected pharmacy program reports that state health officials in Florida, California and New York are actively trying to shut down pharmacy related sites.

If confirmed, these moves would represent a significant change from the tactics reportedly employed recently by a leading US domain registrar to shut down pharmacy related sites for alleged spam, in one case, and for alleged sale of controlled substances, in another. We have zero sympathy for spammers, and we have zero sympathy for the illegal online sales of controlled substances. However, merely operating a pharmacy related affiliate site which is not involved in illegal controlled substances, and which does not engage in spam, is a different matter entirely!

At this time, the most immediately obvious safeguard against this type of heavy-handed crackdown is to use registrars and web hosts physically located outside the US. That way, you’ll enjoy at least some protection against indiscriminate steps taken against sites just because they are involved in pharmacy sales. However, over the longer term, we suspect that even this will not be enough — at least for TLDs that remain entirely under US control.