UNCENSORED FRENCH STOPE$$O SITE SETS UP IN TEXAS, HOME OF EXXONMOBIL

London-24 July 2002 -- The International StopEsso campaign has today set up a new and uncensored French language website in Texas, following Esso’s legal action against Greenpeace France over its internet use of the company’s logos.

The uncensored site  http://www.stopessofrance.org, complete with the logos Exxon’s French subsidiary Esso sued over, is on a server outside Houston, Texas, near parent company ExxonMobil’s controversial Baytown refinery.

Earlier this month a French Court supported Esso Frances' bid to ban Greenpeace France from using a parody of the Esso logo on its French website. This is the same logo which has been used by the StopEsso campaign since its inception in the UK in May last year.

“Esso’s efforts to stamp out protest in France have backfired. We’ve now got a new site in French, hosted in Exxon’s back yard, and more people have now seen the campaign than ever before,” said Cindy Baxter of the UK StopEsso coalition.

Greenpeace International’s Stephanie Tunmore said: “The issue is about Esso’s sabotage of international action on climate change, but Esso’s attempts to gag a key part of the campaign through the courts has made this a free speech issue as well.”

“The International StopEsso Campaign decided to set up this website in ExxonMobil’s back yard because we believe that every citizen in every country, speaking whatever language, has a right to know the lengths this company will go to in its efforts to carry on business as usual,” said Tunmore.

The site launches a new StopE$$o logo competition, as well as other actions: to send an internet card of the parodied logo, emailing Esso Paris, writing to the architect of ExxonMobil’s climate policy, CEO Lee Raymond. It also calls for other websites to mirror and link to it.

Greenpeace France’s site will continue at  http://www.greenpeace.fr/stopesso, but has stopped using the logos as ordered. Greenpeace France has not been involved in setting up the new site.

Notes to Editors
The French courts rejected all but one of Esso’s many claims including the allegation that Greenpeace France and StopEsso were trying to make the dollar signs look like the infamous ‘SS’ insignia. Esso’s claims included:

* Its bid to get Greenpeace France to take the word Esso out of the source code to stop Google and other search engines from getting to StopEsso

* Its claim for a penalty of 80,000 Euros a day if Greenpeace France didn’t comply. The judge reduced this to 5,000 Euros a day;

* Its attempt to have the logo taken off all printed materials;

* Its claim that the $$ look like Nazi symbols;

* Its bid to stop Greenpeace France from using the words Stop Esso.

View the official court judgement at:  http://www.stopesso.com/pdf/judgeng.pdf
stopesso UK is at  http://www.stopesso.com