Websites say sucks to big business
The Guardian (England), Aug. 7, 2000
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4048449,00.html
Duncan Campbell in San Francisco Monday August 7, 2000 The right to set up a really rude website aimed at undermining the public image of big businesses and religions is being fought for by civil rights activists in the US.

The battle comes in the wake of action by leading multinational companies like Wal-Mart and McDonald's to stem the growth of websites which add "sucks", "kills" or "stinks" to the brand name.

"This has become a constant issue," Barry Steinhart of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in New York yesterday. "The big trademark holders are trying to gobble up all the names."

What has angered companies is the proliferation of sites that provide damaging and cheeky information about particular multinationals and churches and use the trade name of the chosen target somewhere in the title of the website.

This means that the idle surfer interested in a company or church can view scurrilous information on the internet.

The ACLU and the Consumer Project on Technology, which was set up by the Green party presidential candidate Ralph Nader, have come to the aid of sites under attack by the big guns.

"This is not a cybersquatting issue," Mr Steinhart said, referring to the practice whereby people register websites in well-known names in order to sell them on to the company concerned at an inflated price.

"This is about a First Amendment right. The trademark laws are designed to protect the public from being confused, but when a name is clearly so derogatory, such as walmart.sucks, the public can well understand it."

Some companies have taken pre-emptive strikes. Volvo owns Volvo.sucks.com and Chase Manhattan has Chase.stinks.com.

Mr Steinhart said the right to free speech should include the right to set up websites which might offend.

While it is mainly big companies that seek to save themselves from embarrassment by buying up potentially rude sites, the Church of Scientology has also been unhappy about the use of its name in derogatory sites.

The ACLU is anxious to fight on behalf of the threatened sites so that they can create a new American adage: always giving a sucks an even break.

Consumer Alert: Scientology http://www.apologeticsindex.org/s04.html Anton -- Apologetics Index: http://www.apologeticsindex.org/ 850+ pages of apologetics and countercult information about cults, sects, and alternative religious movements.

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