[atlarge-discuss] Dow Chemical Shuts Down TenantNet and Hell's Kitchen

[DannyYounger@cs.com]

---------- Forwarded message ----------

The following is worrisome w/respect to the ability of giant corporations
to shut down an entire service--and the sites of all its clients--raising
serious free speech issues and legal problems. Intimidation by giant
corporations seeking control of or objecting to domain names or content
has been increasing for some years.

For those of you unfamiliar with the site mentioned, http://www.tenant.net
is a tenant information and rights website in New York.  They also host an
e-mail newsletter which is city-wide, and one for the Hell's Kitchen
neighborhood (where the web master resides and is active in the
community).

TenantNet/Hell's Kitchen Online                     12/13/02
http://hellskitchen.net "All the News the Times Won't Print"
http://www.tenant.net
============================================================
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 (or 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).

-------------------------------------------------------------

Questions for the at-large membership: 

As Verio is a member of the ISP constituency, is this an issue that should be 
raised with the ISP constituency?  Should ISPs be required to abide by a Code 
of Practice that would prohibit such conduct under penalty of law?  As 
actions on the part of ISPs of the type mentioned above can affect the 
legitimate interests of domain name registrants, is this an issue that falls 
within the purview of ICANN?  Inasmuch as ISPs are not yet a contracting 
party in the ICANN world of interrelationships, does ICANN have any authority 
over the ISP community?  

This forwarded message is clearly a grass-roots, bottom-up appeal for help 
from members of the real-world At-Large.  As representatives of the At-Large 
movement, how will you choose to respond?  Your feedback will be appreciated.

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