McD's, as their original motivation for suing Helen and Dave way back when was to stop the information in the leaflets get-
ting to the public.

McSpotlight was previewed in January 1996 at the first Next Five Minutes conference. The response we got there gave us
an inkling of what was to come when Helen and Dave officially launched the site in London that February. We now like to
claim that we've had the most press Coverage of any website in the world ever. Which might just be true. Time magazine,
der Speigel, Sydney Morning Herald, Times of India, Tagezeitung, Wired, Daily Mail, New York Times, Chicago Tribune,
The Australian, LA Times, Helsingen Snomat and so many others that we ran out of cardboard boxes to store them in. And
then America's largest selling paper, USA Today, put McSpot on the front cover and the world’s biggest documentary show,
60 Minutes’, did a feature. The site has also been mentioned in quiz shows, studio debates, opinion pieces, legal text
hooks, PhD thesis, court cases and parliament.

Web stats don't mean nuffink, of course, but hey. The main xs4all site has now had over 70 million hits - not including the
US mirror, which has contributed at least the same again - and it's still getting 2 million hits a month. One particular reg-
ular visitor was “medonalds.com”, which accessed McSpotlight over 2000 times in the first week. Many people cite the
publication of the Starr Report as the day the internet came of age, but we prefer to think it was on the week of the McLibel
verdict, when we had the result up within 10 minutes of the Judge's ruling - a good 20 minutes before any other media out-
let - and when 2.2 million people dropped in.

There are many reasons for this success. Firstly, burgers. We couldn't really have picked a more high-profile opponent -
everyone wants to hear the dirt on success stories of their calibre. Add that to the trial, which was fast becoming legendary,
and we were guaranteed mega-hits. Secondly, content. Certainly at the time of the launch, most websites were happy to
show off their gifs and <hr>s, but none seemed concerned about whether their existence had any point. With all the re-
search from the trial - witness statements, legal documents, press cuttings, interviews - at our disposal, we soon had
10,000 pages online. (Actually that may not be true. Noone can remember how many it was.) After a year or so it jumped up
to 200,000 when we added all 313 days of court transcripts - a first in many respects. Thirdly, wit. We didn't want to suffer
a similar fate to many of the activist websites of the time, through which only the hardiest fanatic could wade. Our task was
not difficult as the McDonald's ethos provides such rich pickings. Hopefully this attitude also translated into the design,
which aimed to be confident, intuitive and impressive in its own right and which was generally being overlooked at this
time. Fourthly, nerds. MeSpotlight was groundbreaking in many ways and attracted a Jot of publicity and traffic from the
geek population. For example, the "Tour of McDonald's website", not only utilised the brand-new frames function, but also
invented the technique of mixing two sites in one - we linked to pages from McDonald's own website on one side and dis-
played our commentary on the other. Wired called it “truly inspirational”. We were also quick off the ground to incorporate
a Debating Room into the site, which has proved immensely popular to this day. Fifthly, people. We were inundated with pro-
fessionals offering to contribute corporate code/ designs/ skills/ enthusiasm to something with a bit of a point. But probably
the largest reason for its success is censorship. Here was a genuine example of censored material finding a new audience
via an uncontrollable new medium. And who doesn't want to see what it is that the Big Boys don't want us to know?
However, for me, McSpotlight was just a diversion from the real reason | got involved with McLibel: to make a TV docu-
mentary about the trial. Throughout the whole saga | was convinced that the mainstream TV would welcome such a film
with open arms - especially given the dross that goes out day after day - as it has all the elements needed for a top docu-
mentary. From spies and secret recordings to global icons versus the underdogs, | felt there was no way the TV companies
would reject our proposals. But reject them they did. So we decided to go ahead and make the film off our own backs, with
no funding. (For selfish reasons, | was quite glad they wouldn't commission at this early stage as there's no way a first-time
film maker would have been given the Opportunity to handle such an important story for a major network.) The film was
made over two and a half years, by a volunteer crew which included the acclaimed director Ken Loach. (Get yourself off to
"My Name is Joe’ if you haven't seen it yet. It's truly staggering.) He directed the courtroom reconstructions for us,
ashamedly admitting during filming that he had once made a McDonald's commercial. Towards the end of the trial, the BBC
decided to buy our film for a slot directly after the verdict. We were delighted. But a few days before transmission it was
pulled for legal reasons. Channel 4 picked it up but, again, the lawyers put a stop to the broadcast. The film had become

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