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cludes hotlinks to the sites of Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and others. Similarly, McDonald's (http:/Awww.mcdon-
alds.com) and Nike (http://www.nikebiz.com) dedicate parts of their web sites to messages on environmental and labour
practices. In a medium where preventing activists from making allegations appears unviable, disarming them by issuing a
counter message seems an attractive option.

Ethical and environmental issues are a big part of internet campaigning. The Boycott Nike site
(http://www.saigon.convnike) urges visitors to pressurise the firm over its employment practices in South East Asia.
Visitors are also encouraged to sign letters to US President Bill Clinton and to Nike's chief executive officer. Project
Underground (http://moles.org/projectunderground) encourages visitors to boycott Shell because of its alleged activities
in Peru, Colombia and Nigeria. Visitors are also encouraged to write to Shell's CEO and to e-mail the oil corporation. There
is also a Boycott Shell/Free Nigeria home page at http://www.essential.org/action/shell. The Free Burma Coalition, which
aims to persuade investors to get out of Burma, set up a web site in September 1995. PepsiCo decided to withdraw from
Burma in 1997 after the internet campaign. Texaco and Heineken are among others persuaded not to invest in, or buy
from, the country.

So, will ethical and environmental issues move up the awareness agenda as a consequence? Wollen believes companies
won't change overnight, “but it will become more of a battlefield". For brand owners, the key concern is protecting their
brands and trademarks. Catrin Turner, head of intellectual property at law firm Davies Arnold Cooper, observes that: “Some
brands shy from taking action — you don't want to become ‘McLibel Mark Two'." For those that do take action, the starting
point is libel, or trade libel. "But there are certain things about the internet that make it more difficult than print to sue. In
particular, the difficulty of tracking down the operators of the site," says Cooper.

A law unto themselves Tim Hardy, head of litigation at law firm Cameron McKenna, has a number of clients, from pharma-
ceuticals, financial and other sectors, which have been targeted by protest sites. The problem for brand owners, Hardy
says, is that: “Individuals and activists can put up highly defamatory material on their web site, much of which probably
wouldn't be published otherwise. Worryingly, this material is readily accessible." Despite the difficulties, there are strate-
gies that can be adopted to have material removed, and even to get web sites killed, Hardy explains. “You can pursue the
internet service provider (ISP) because they can be held responsible for what they have allowed to be published. Under
the Defamation Act 1996, they have the innocent dissemination defence, provided they don't know the material is there,
but once you have put them on notice that's no longer valid. Many ISPs will remove material rather than risk legal action.”
In the US, ISPs are exempt from liability for material that originates from third parties, under the Communications Decency
Act 1996. “This might embolden groups to put more stuff on US sites," Turner says. “But, if it's accessible from the UK it's
potentially a libel." An increasingly litigious atmosphere could have far-reaching consequences. Owners have a right to
protect their brands and trademarks, but do they have a right to close down debate that may be in the public interest?
Turner says: "As the ISP market consolidates, the remaining ISPs will become more and more averse to risk. There will be
Jess of a maverick attitude and possibly the throttling of free speech." Although recourse through the law may be appro-
priate in some circumstances, to focus purely on the legal dimension may obscure the meaning behind this rise in internet
activism.

The Henley Centre's Wollen believes that companies are finding it difficult to deal with the cultural change that the inter-
net represents. He suggests that when dealing with net activists, “it might be best to start by asking what the problem is,
rather than a ‘cease and desist’ order. It would be more in keeping with the ethos of the net. "If the net is about anything
it's about a shift of power away from the centre and to the individual. It's also about people organising themselves into
communities of affinity," Wollen adds. “And companies find it difficult to deal with emotional responses of any kind, posi-
tive — such as fan and tribute sites — as well as negative." Henley Centre director Sian Davies thinks marketers should try
to turn it around: “If people are going online to talk about brands then doesn't that tell us something about marketing? A lot

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ation: “It's a medium in which we do come in for some criticism; we do take it seriously.” Shell takes the power of the web
seriously enough to give a large part of its web site (http:/www.shell.com) over to information on company ethics, and in
a shrewd move to wrong- foot its detractors has a ‘forums’ section which both encourages debate and criticism and in-
of companies try to shut things down and that's quite short-sighted and naive.”