Internet has become one of the most used communication media. This and the
fact that no constraining information publishing policy exists have created
an urgent need to control the quality of information circulating through t
his media. To this purpose, the Health On the Net Foundation has initiated
the Code of Conduct (HONcode) for the health/medical domain. This initiativ
e proposes guidelines to information providers, with the aim, on the one ha
nd, of raising the quality of data available on the Net and, on the other h
and, of helping to identify Internet sites that are maintained by qualified
people and contain reliable data. The HONcode mainly includes the followin
g ethical aspects: the author's credentials, the date of the last modificat
ion with respect to clinical documents, confidentiality of data, source dat
a reference, funding and the advertising policy. This article presents the
HONcode and its evolution since it was launched in 1996. (C) 1998 Elsevier
Science Ltd. All rights reserved.