science

LegitScript

LegitScript is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand LegitScript rather than just read about it. In short: LegitScript is a Portland, Oregon-based internet and payments compliance company that provides services for merchant monitoring, platform monitoring, and certification in high-risk industries. The company also performs investigative analyses for government agencies around the world regarding cybercrime, and offers brand monitoring for intellectual property infringement.

Key takeaways

LegitScript belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect LegitScript to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of LegitScript from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

LegitScript is a Portland, Oregon-based internet and payments compliance company that provides services for merchant monitoring, platform monitoring, and certification in high-risk industries. The company also performs investigative analyses for government agencies around the world regarding cybercrime, and offers brand monitoring for intellectual property infringement. Some of LegitScript's partners include Google, Facebook, Amazon, Bing, and Visa. LegitScript also works with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to monitor and investigate websites marketing FDA-regulated products. LegitScript has been designated as a Top Workplace in Oregon multiple times in recent years and in 2019 was named to the Inc. 5000 list of most successful companies.

Founding LegitScript's founder and former CEO is John Horton, who was a White House aide on drug policy issues from 2002 to 2007. Scott Roth is the company's current CEO. The company is a founding member of the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies. The NABP has written that it endorses LegitScript on behalf of the government agencies that license and regulate pharmacies and pharmacists in the United States, Canada, and other jurisdictions for use "by search engine advertising programs, Domain Name Registrars, registries, payment processing companies, social media companies, and other Internet platforms to ensure that Internet platforms operate in compliance with applicable healthcare laws and regulations, and are not utilized in furtherance of the illicit sale of unregulated healthcare products". In addition, some EU government agencies have referred to LegitScript as the "appropriate authority" to which rogue Internet pharmacies should be reported. Although LegitScript began its monitoring primarily in the online pharmacy and dietary supplement spaces, the company has since expanded into other high-risk areas, including transaction laundering, gambling, illicit adult content, scams and fraud, cannabidiol (CBD), content that advocates for hate or violence, and more.

Domain name registrars In November 2008, LegitScript launched its registrar notification program and reported that it had shut down 500 "rogue" Internet pharmacies by notifying their ISPs and domain name registrars. In May 2010, the company released a report regarding over 7,000 websites displaying a forged pharmacy license, indicating that it worked with 11 different domain name registrars to shut down the websites. In late 2012, the company stated that it had worked with registrars to shut down over 35,000 rogue Internet pharmacy websites in the previous four years. As of early 2013, several domain name registrars explicitly state in their terms of services that they suspend and lock domain names identified as rogue Internet pharmacies by LegitScript, and outsource their abuse point-of-contact on Internet pharmacy issues to LegitScript. The company has stated that it works with most domain name registrars, and, in late 2012, it began publishing data showing that the websites of rogue Internet pharmacies "cluster" around a small number of registrars that LegitScript says ignore abuse notifications. Several Internet pharmacy affiliate marketers have publicly discussed the importance of registering Internet pharmacy domain names with registrars that do not work with LegitScript. In submitting abuse notifications to ICANN-accredited registrars, LegitScript has authority to act on the behalf of government regulators in some countries, such as Japan.

Consumer protection In March 2010, consumer protection website SiteJabber announced that it would begin integrating LegitScript's legitimacy determinations into its Internet pharmacy ratings. In May 2010, the WOT Services announced a similar initiative in which LegitScript Internet pharmacy legitimacy determinations would be integrated into its reputation rankings.

Dietary supplements and designer drugs LegitScript maintains a Healthcare Product Legitimacy program that monitors whether "dietary supplements have been the subject of regulatory action, are considered unsafe, or are marketed as miracle cures" and that is also endorsed by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. In its advertising policies for healthcare and medicines, Google indicates that it uses LegitScript's healthcare product legitimacy program to determine which supplements and designer drugs should be restricted from advertising.

Anti-trust lawsuit Legitscript is the subject of an antitrust action by pharmacychecker.com, a website which provides and compares prices of drugs from licensed international pharmacies, and verifies the credentials of these pharmacies. Pharmacychecker.com alleges that Legitscript is engaged in a conspiracy to suppress the information it provides. U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon ruled on January 3 2023 denying a motion by LegitScript for a summary judgment for a stay of discovery in the lawsuit, as well as affirming Pharmacychecker.com as a legitimate enterprise.

International Internet pharmacy certification As of February 2013, LegitScript's website indicated that it had approved over 250 online pharmacy websites and documented over 48,000 "rogue" online pharmacy websites. The program is also endorsed by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with LegitScript

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what LegitScript claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to LegitScript before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about LegitScript ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of LegitScript

In research: LegitScript appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses LegitScript in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: LegitScript is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Pharmaceuticals policy, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for LegitScript outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study LegitScript in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what LegitScript means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain LegitScript out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is LegitScript in simple terms?

Why does LegitScript matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study LegitScript?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on LegitScript.