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 (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 (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.
(www.theyesmen.org/dow/#threat)
In a comical anticlimax, Dow then used a little-known domain-name
rule to take possession of Dow-Chemical.com (www.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 (www.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 (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 (www.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 (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.'"
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