[HK-Online] Dow Chemical Shuts Down TenantNet and Hell's Kitchen

[Tenant]

TenantNet/Hell's Kitchen Online                     12/13/02
http://hellskitchen.net/ "All the News the Times Won't Print"
http://www.tenant.net/
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IN THIS ISSUE ...

We just received the following press release and we're passing it on to our 
readers. Last weekend our websites, www.tenant.net and www.hellskitchen.net 
were shut down for nearly a day. It wasn't because we didn't pay the bill 
or due to a technical glitch. It was Dow Chemical Company that was 
objecting to a critical parody website called www.dow-chemical.com.

We have no connection with this parody website, other than being on the 
same network. Dow Chemical pressured the upstream provider, Verio, to shut 
down the entire network. Many unrelated sites also went down.

Landlords can't (are aren't supposed to be able to) evict tenants without 
going to court. Similarly, we feel that if Dow Chemical felt it had grounds 
for action against the parody website, it should obey the law.

Instead, Dow threatened Verio to turn off the network and it appears that 
Verio, fearful of a little controversy, complied. This is the sort of 
intimidation long-feared on the internet. And while we at Hell's Kitchen 
and TenantNet haven't really dwelled on Free Speech issues, it's something 
we all need to be reminded about once in a while. You don't necessarily 
know you have it unless you lose it. It was like Dow and Verio decided to 
shut down an entire bookstore because they didn't like the contents of a 
single book.


December 13, 2002

DOW, BURSON-MARSTELLER CLAMP DOWN ON FAKE WEBSITES
But companies find it harder to stifle criticism

Two giant companies are struggling to shut down parody websites that 
portray them unfavorably, interrupting internet use for thousands in the 
process, and filing a lawsuit that pits the formidable legal department of 
PR giant Burson-Marsteller against a freshman at Hampshire College.

The activists behind the fake corporate websites have fought back, and 
obtained substantial publicity in the process.

Fake websites have been used by activists before, but Dow-Chemical.com and 
BursonMarsteller.com represent the first time that such websites have 
successfully been used to publicize abuses by specific corporations.

A December 3 press release originating from one of the fake sites, 
Dow-Chemical.com, explained the "real" reasons that Dow could not take 
responsibility for the Bhopal catastrophe, which has resulted in an 
estimated 20,000 deaths over the years 
(http://www.theyesmen.org/dow/#release). "Our prime responsibilities are to 
the people who own Dow shares, and to the industry as a whole," the release 
stated. "We cannot do anything for the people of Bhopal." The fake site 
immediately received thousands of outraged e-mails 
(http://www.dowethics.com/r/about/corp/email.htm).

Within hours, the real Dow sent a legal threat to Dow-Chemical.com's 
upstream provider, Verio, prompting Verio to shut down the fake Dow's ISP 
for nearly a day, closing down hundreds of unrelated websites and bulletin 
boards in the process.

The fake Dow website quickly resurfaced at an ISP in Australia. 
(http://theyesmen.org/dow/#threat)

In a comical anticlimax, Dow then used a little-known domain-name rule to 
take possession of Dow-Chemical.com (http://theyesmen.org/dow/#story), 
another move which backfired when amused journalists wrote articles in 
newspapers from The New York Times to The Hindu in India 
(http://theyesmen.org/dow/#links), and sympathetic activists responded by 
cloning and mirroring the site at many locations, including 
http://www.dowethics.com/, http://www.dowindia.com/ and, with a twist, 
http://www.mad-dow-disease.com/. Dow continues to play whack-a-mole with 
these sites (at least one ISP has received veiled threats).

Burson-Marsteller, the public relations company that helped to "spin" 
Bhopal, has meanwhile sued college student Paul Hardwin 
(mailto:phardwin@yurt.org) for putting up a fake Burson-Marsteller site, 
http://www.bursonmarsteller.com/, which recounted how the PR giant helped 
to downplay the Bhopal disaster. Burson-Marsteller's suit against Hardwin 
will be heard next week by the World Intellectual Property Organization 
(http://reamweaver.com/bmwipo/wipo.html).

Hardwin, unable to afford a lawyer, has composed a dryly humorous 57-page 
rebuttal to the PR giant's lawsuit 
(http://www.reamweaver.com/bmwipo/response.htm#reality). On page 7, for 
instance, the student notes that Burson-Marsteller's "stated goal is 'to 
ensure that the perceptions which surround our clients and influence their 
stakeholders are consistent with reality.'" Hardwin goes on to assert that 
his satirical domain is doing precisely that, by publicizing "academic and 
journalistic materials about Burson-Marsteller's involvement with and 
relationship to, for example, Philip Morris and the National Smoker's 
Alliance, a consumer front group designed to create the appearance of 
public support for big-tobacco policies; Union Carbide and the deaths of 
20,000 people following the 1984 disaster in Bhopal; and political regimes 
such as that of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and more recently Saudi 
Arabia following the events of September 11; and to properly associate them 
with the relevant Trademark so that they may be understood accordingly by 
Internet users."

In response to the suit's claim that "a substantial degree of goodwill is 
associated with [the Burson-Marstellar Trademark]" Hardwin offers much 
"evidence to the contrary" including "a newspaper headline in which the 
Complainant is characterized as 'the Devil.'"

The primary goal of RTMark (http://rtmark.com/) is to publicize corporate 
subversion of the democratic process. Just like other corporations, it 
achieves its aims by any and all means at its disposal. RTMark has 
previously helped to publicize websites against political parties 
(http://rtmark.com/othersites.html#fpo), political figures 
(http://www.rtmark.com/bush.html), and entities like the World Trade 
Organization (http://www.gatt.org/) and the World Economic Forum 
(http://www.world-economic-forum.com/).