Mad Dow disease is catching
An internet site that sends up
Dow Chemical’s smarmy public relations “spin” is causing a sensation
in cyberspace.
The spoof site appeared at
www.dow-chemical.com for about 72 hours before Dow shut it down.
The spoof site mimics Dow's real site closely, in terms of
design and content, but contains an uncharacteristically honest
approach to issues like sustainable development and the company’s
responsibility for the Bhopal disaster.
The Yes Men, an
organisation of anti-corporate pranksters, have claimed
responsibility for the spoof site.
Word spread when the Yes
Men distributed a press release to about 400 individuals – mainly
journalists and members of its artists collective.
The Yes
Men say the site received more than a quarter of a million visits in
those 72 hours – including more than 8000 from Dow employees
(measured by checking the user’s domain – in this case, Dow.com).
According to The Yes Men, Dow was "hopping mad" about the
spoof. The company issued a demand to the site's Internet Service
Provider, Verio, to remove the content immediately as it was in
violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Verio not only shut down Dow-Chemical.com; they shut down
"thing.net" – a hosting service for dozens of artists and activists
who had no relationship to the Dow spoof.
But the site
survives. Within hours of the site shutdown, the content returned at
a new address, http://dow-chemical.va.com.au/along
with a new link: "Download this entire site."
Yes Men
spokesperson Andy Bichlbaum told The New York Times that "if
Dow gets this one too, it will continue to exist," as activists have
been encouraged to mirror the site content at additional web
addresses. The site currently appears at several addresses,
including http://www.dowethics.com/, http://www.bhopal.doesntexist.com/and,
courtesy of Greenpeace, http://www.mad-dow-disease.com/
Join
Greenpeace’s
discussion on
Dow’s refusal to take responsibility for Bhopal.
http://www.mad-dow-disease.com/
Last edited:Thursday, 19 December, 2002
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