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From: eToys opponents <announce0068@rtmark.com> Save Address Block Sender
To: eToys opponent <hans_extrem@hotmail.com> Save Address
Subject: etoy/eToys press conference Monday 6:30pm at MoMA, NYC
Date: 17 Dec 1999 08:14:05 -0000

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    This message is intended only for New York area residents, or those likely
    to pass it on to a large number of same. Please accept our apologies
    if you have received this message in error. Remove yourself from all future
    RTMark mailings by writing
    mailto:remove@rtmark.com?subject=hans_extrem@hotmail.com

    December 17, 1999
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

    TOY WAR HEATS UP
    Press conference at Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd St., New York, 6:30pm.
    Free and open to the public.

           Contact: mailto:etoyconference@rtmark.com
                   (646)228-8822 (Friday 12/18 to Monday 12/20 only)
           More information: http://rtmark.com/etoy/
                             http://rtmark.com/etoypress.html

    On November 29, freedom on the Internet suffered a potentially devastating
    blow when the e-commerce toy giant eToys was granted a court injunction
    against the European online art collective etoy (no "s"), forcing the much
    longer-established artists to stop using their domain name, etoy.com, which
    predates eToys' existence by two years. (Most recently, Network Solutions,
    the company that maintains the master list of internet addresses (domains)
    has blocked email service to etoy.com, though this was not mandated by the
    injunction.)

    On December 12, RTMark, an online activist group, announced an initiative
    aimed at raising public awareness of the situation. With a new series of
    on-line activities organized in a "mutual fund" structure
    (http://rtmark.com/etoy/), RTMark is helping to create a precedent that will
    show corporations that they cannot abuse the law on the Internet with
    impunity, much as the Internet-driven Brent Spar fiasco forced Shell and
    other petroleum companies to consider environmental impact before undertaking
    potentially destructive operations (http://rtmark.com/shell).

    The "etoy Fund" and other anti-eToys campaigns have been so successful that
    the 40% drop in eToys' share price which began on November 29, the day
    of the injunction, has been widely attributed to the protests and to fear
    of their results. The campaign will continue and intensify during the last-
    minute Christmas shopping rush.

    The activities in the "etoy Fund" range from direct hacking and Denial of
    Service (DoS) attacks against eToys.com, to information campaigns directed at
    eToys investors on ETYS Internet message boards, to traditional boycotts and
    pickets. Several of the projects have already been a demonstrable success;
    perhaps most visibly, the "Virtual Sit-in" (http://rtmark.com/sitin.html), a
    sophisticated DoS attack in which tens of thousands have participated, has
    rendered the eToys servers uselessly sluggish at times.  (The RAND Corporation
    warned eToys this could happen, apparently to no avail; see
    http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/19991215/1754367s.htm.)

    Confirmed speakers and participants in Monday's press conference include etoy
    spokespeople, the Electronic Disturbance Theater (developers of the Virtual
    Sit-in software), Fakeshop (designers of the Virtual Sit-in pages),
    spokespeople for other embattled domains (http://rtmark.com/etoyother.html),
    Santas Against eToys (we expect about twenty), The Hungry March Band,
    Reverend Billy, the computer buyer's advice columnist for iVillage.com, and
    Internet advisory Rhizome. Question-and-answer periods will follow each
    speaker.

    BACKGROUND

    eToys is the third largest e-business on the Internet; etoy.com, which eToys
    lawyers have shut down, is the domain synonymous with the oldest, best-known,
    and most influential Internet art group, etoy. etoy has owned etoy.com since
    1995, before eToys existed, and two years before eToys registered its own URL.
    etoy.com has never made any reference to eToys. See
    http://rtmark.com/etoypress.html for more information.

    RTMark, which is in no way associated with etoy, aims to publicize the
    widespread corporate abuse of democratic institutions like courts and
    elections. To this end it solicits and distributes funding for "sabotage
    projects"; the groups of such projects are called "mutual funds" in order to
    call attention to one way in which large numbers of people come to identify
    corporate needs as their own. RTMark projects do not normally target specific
    companies; the etoy Fund projects are an exception.

    RTMark is no stranger to the hot topic of domain-name control. The World
    Trade Organization's press release about http://gatt.org, accusing RTMark of
    "illegal practices" in publishing information critical of the WTO at that
    site, merely brought the WTO ridicule from the press
    (http://rtmark.com/gatt.html); George W. Bush's and Microsoft's legal attacks
    on GWBush.com (http://rtmark.com/bush.html) and MicrosoftEdu.com
    (http://rtmark.com/allpress.html#mse) failed to affect the domains. See also
    http://rtmark.com/othersites.html for more on this issue.

                                 # 30 #

    This message is intended only for New York area residents, or those likely
    to pass it on to a large number of same. Please accept our apologies
    if you have received this message in error. Remove yourself from all future
    RTMark mailings by writing
    mailto:remove@rtmark.com?subject=hans_extrem@hotmail.com

    If you have received multiple copies of this notice and wish to receive only
    one, please remove as above all address versions but one.

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