If anyone ever thought e-protests didn't really register...
---
Greenpeace and Bayer at loggerheads about GM rice and protest e-mails
Heise, 3 November 2006
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/80497
The dispute between the environmental protection organization Greenpeace and the Bayer Group about the cultivation and sale of genetically modified rice is beginning to extend to the Internet as a battleground in more ways than one.
According to Greenpeace statements the Leverkusen-based corporate group has recently been pressuring the provider hosting the German Greenpeace website EinkaufsNetz. The agency responsible for managing the technical side of the site had been asked by Bayer to block the page, Greenpeace stated. The reason for the group's behavior is the ready-made protest e-mails that can be sent via "EinkaufsNetz" to individual Bayer executives.
http://de.einkaufsnetz.org/
Whereas Greenpeace considers the mails to be a legitimate means for citizens to express their disapproval of the policies of the corporate group and call on Bayer to pull out of the GM rice business, the company for its part considers them nothing but spam and has according to Greenpeace demanded that the provider prevent them from being sent. According to Greenpeace in place of "EinkaufsNetz" a "Server not found" notice appeared on the Internet at the beginning of the week for almost a whole day. Only after Greenpeace intervened did the provider once again make the site available online.
"Where would we be if major corporate groups could simply by making a phone call censor and control the World Wide Web," the Greenpeace spokeswoman Ulrike Brendel said by way of expressing the organization's anger at having its website blocked. Meanwhile protest e-mails can once again be sent to Bayer. Earlier at "EinkaufsNetz" a note had told visitors that "due to a temporary malfunction" the service was presently not available. The following sentence has meanwhile been added to the protest mail template: "I am not prepared to have anyone prohibit me from protesting against genetically modified rice." (Robert W. Smith)
---
STOP GM WINE
Wines of South Africa (WOSA) inexplicably seems to be backing GM trials. Click the link below to automatically send them an e-mail. It only takes a minute: http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=87&page=1 (paste the whole link into your browser if necessary)
WARNING: Don't be fobbed off with assurances about WOSA's opposition to GM yeast; if GM grape trials go ahead then all South African wine could be GM contaminated.