[After a recent court injunction against the use of their domain
name, art site etoy.com (winner of the 1996 Golden Nica at Ars Electronica) has
been forced to close their doors. The problem stems from the name "etoys" which
has been registered as a trademark by etoys.com. The net activist group RTMark,
who will be featured in the next Whitney Biennial exhibition in New York, has
decided to protest the silencing of etoy by organizing a "multi-user game." Read
more in their press release below.–Ed]

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NEW INTERNET "GAME" DESIGNED TO DESTROY ETOYS.COM
Stock plunge must be accelerated, groups say

RTMark has joined the growing torrent of outrage, sometimes violent in tone,
against Internet toy giant eToys (http://rtmark.com/etoypress.html) by helping
create and distribute what RTMark calls "a new toy": a multi-user Internet game
whose goal is to damage (or possibly even destroy) the company.

The game, which aims to punish eToys for shutting down prominent Internet art
group etoy's domain (see http://rtmark.com/etoypress.html for more information),
takes the form of an RTMark "mutual fund," or list of sabotage projects
(http://rtmark.com/etoy/). All projects in the "etoy Fund," some of which have
already been financed, aim to lower the company's stock market value as much as
possible. The site also includes pages that will help visitors to cripple the
eToys servers during the ten days leading to Christmas
(http://rtmark.com/sitin.html), pages providing detailed financial information
about the company, and a page of links to the dozen or so other groups calling
for eToys' downfall.

Since November 29, when eToys lawyers shut down the art group's domain and news
of the massive and violent-toned reaction began to spread, huge sellouts
(including a 2.5-million-share sale by Moore Capital Management, Inc.) have
caused eToys stock to fall from $67/share to $45/share, or nearly 33%; before
November 29 eToys stock had been rising. RTMark's new projects group aims to
systematically capitalize on and accelerate the eToys share fall.

"The etoy Fund projects are a game the whole world can play," said RTMark
spokesperson Ernest Lucha. "Many of the projects–boycotts, pickets, e-mail
campaigns–can be played by anyone, while other projects–countersuing eToys,
disturbing the eToys servers, etc.–require specialized work. There's something
for everyone, and we know we can easily count on 10,000 players to start with."

There's also something for hackers, who are normally apolitical but have by and
large taken eToys' attack on etoy as an attack on themselves. "eToys is trying to
take advantage of a legal situation in which there's basically no protection
against corporations, whether you're an artist, an activist, or just someone in
the wrong place at the wrong time," said a hacker who identifies himself as "Code
Blue." "But they're relying a bit too much on the legal. They're saying f*ck you
to everything that etoy stands for, and that's like spraying tear gas all over
the entire hacking community."

"This game is much more exciting than any other computer game, because you have a
real-world bad guy to fight," said RTMark spokesperson Lucha.

"We think it's especially exciting that the court date [December 27, at which the
final fate of etoy.com will be decided] falls so close to Christmas," said
Richard Zach, a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley who
has closely followed the dispute since the beginning. "The holiday season is a
time of giving, but since eToys decided to take, we're making an example of them
during their busiest season. Christmas won't be the end of the game, but it's an
important first milestone."

It's not just about etoy, nor about art or hacking, according to Lucha: the etoy
Fund and directly hostile efforts like it could help lead to a new balance of
power between citizens and big business. "Why should global culture be dominated
by business? The net is a playing field that could help to create, through law, a
worldwide balance of power that just doesn't exist now."

The anger against eToys is not likely to dissipate soon, even with a favorable
outcome to the case (i.e. the survival of etoy.com), according to Lucha. "eToys
says etoy.com was hurting sales by disturbing those who stumble upon it. Well,
eToys' domain is disturbing people who want to see great internet art but stumble
upon eToys instead, and so why not say eToys shouldn't exist? Why should
financial might make right? If they want to play by barbaric rules, we will too."

"eToys feels comfortable destroying art for the benefit of its business, so all
the players of this game can feel great destroying eToys–for the benefit of
art," said Lucha.

OTHER ATTACKS

RTMark and its "etoy Fund" collaborators are only one group among dozens to mount
digital and real-world attacks against eToys in time for Christmas.

Two other anti-eToys "products," soon to be announced independently, come from
groups of programmers who have, like the hackers, taken eToys' action as a
personal affront. One such group is nearly finished with an "action entertainment
product" inspired by some of etoy's well-known pieces (such as the "digital
hijack," which won Ars Electronica's most prestigious award, and $7,375, in 1996;
see the etoy site, still available at http://146.228.204.72:8080/, for more
information). The "product," which will shortly be available at
http://www.toywar.com, "will enable any net user to directly attack eToys.com,"
according to one of the programmers involved in its development.

Another anti-eToys tool that has already been deployed and will be announced
within the next several days, according to a source within the above-mentioned
group, is a program that generates fraudulent web page accesses ("hits")
disguised to look like those of Internet shoppers coming from numerous,
randomly-chosen locations. The aim of the tool is to make the financial valuation
of eToys.com, which depends heavily on web access counts, unreliable. This
uncertainty, which should become more evident in the days to come, should
increasingly make investors even more skittish about investing in the company,
according to the source.

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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.