The Associated Press
Wednesday, Dec. 15, 1999; 6:23 p.m. EST

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP ) – Online renegades banned from using their etoy.com Web site are retaliating against the mainstream Internet toy store eToys.com that sued them.

Calling for an online sit-in, cyberspace writers at corporation watchdog rtmark.com advocating on behalf of the etoy group said Wednesday that eToys' demonstrated the intentions of the new net elite: "to turn the World Wide Web into their own private home-shopping network," when the company sued the European-based etoy.com.

Last month, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge issued a preliminary injunction against etoy.com forcing them to stop using the domain name "etoy.com" or face fines of up to $10,000 per day.

eToys.com sued the etoy.com group in September, claiming that the prominent Internet commerce Web site needed to protect its brand name and intellectual property, and "to reduce the risk that our customers will be exposed to the hateful rhetoric and obscene images that defendants' have frequently displayed on their Web site."

rtmark's Web site on Wednesday said the visitors could click on links to cripple the eToys servers during the 10 days leading to Christmas, as well as pages providing detailed financial information about the company and a page of links to the dozen or so other groups calling for eToys' downfall.

eToys spokesman Jonathan Cutler said Wednesday that "traffic is very robust" and that their site "has been extremely reliable."

"I can tell you that we have the capacity to welcome millions and millions of poeple to our site this holiday season," he said.

eToys, based in Santa Monica, Calif., is one of the top online stores for toys, video games, software, videos, books, music, and baby products.