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article
Companies
find it harder to stifle criticism. by Paul Hardwin. 11:59am Thu Dec 19 '02
(Modified on 12:45pm Thu Dec 19 '02) |
article#24704 |
|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.
Contact: Paul Hardwin: mailto:phardwin@yurt.org
DowEthics.com: mailto:info@dowethics.com
DOW, BURSON-MARSTELLER CLAMP DOWN ON FAKE WEBSITES.
Two giant companies are struggling to shut down parody
websites that portray them unfavourably, 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,â 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'supstream 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
publicizecorporate subversion of the democratic process. Just
like other corporations, it achieves its aims by any and all
means at its disposal. RT Mark 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).
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