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PORTLAND, Ore.— As Vision Monday reported last year, members of several U.S. professional vision-related associations and leading optical retailers and suppliers have been spearheading a project to develop standardized voluntary certification of online optical retailers in conjunction with international certification organization, LegitScript (www.legitscript.com) based here and in Dublin, Ireland.

Modeled after the Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites program conducted by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy that provides for voluntary certification of online pharmacies, the online eyewear certification program is intended to provide certification for eyeglasses prescription verification, transparency regarding the identity of the owner/operator of internet websites, and customer/patient privacy protection, according to John Horton, president and founder of LegitScript, and Wally Lovejoy of Lovejoy Eyecare Consulting LLC in Cincinnati, an independent consultant for the NAOO who is working on this initiative.

Since the group started its work and following an extended “comment period” among interested parties, Horton told Vision Monday that, on March 2, LegitScript will launch a certification and monitoring program for internet sellers of prescription eyeglasses.

The genesis of the program was the concern by non-profits and legitimate industry participants about the existence of illicit prescription eyeglass sellers, and that internet users should have a good way to distinguish between legitimate and non-legitimate merchants in this space, he pointed out.

LegitScript online pharmacy and dietary supplement monitoring programs are used by Google, Microsoft, Visa and other major platforms.

The program will initially be targeted at the U.S. market, and any entity offering to sell prescription eyeglasses to U.S. residents will be eligible for the program. However, LegitScript will proactively monitor and identify all prescription eyeglasses sellers active in the U.S. market, and internet users will be able to search on legitscript.com to determine whether an eyeglasses websites is classified as “legitimate,” “unverified” (which is a neutral descriptor) or “unapproved.”

Program pricing for certification: $395 base fee for first URL, each additional URL (for the same merchant) is $39.50. If approved, annual certification fee is $995, with lower prices for any additional URL ranging from $99.50 to $695.

The application itself, and other information about the program, is expected to be available at legitscript.com this week.