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Domain Name Battle

Embarrassing facts Shell omitted from its history

Extract from page 10 (with our amendments in italics)

HISTORY

From 1907 until 2005, Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and The “Shell” Transport and Trading Company, p.l.c. were the two public parent companies of a group of companies known collectively as the “Royal Dutch/Shell Group”. In 2005, the Donovan’s beat us to the domain name “RoyalDutchShellGroup.com” and we lost a costly legal battle to seize it.

Operating activities were conducted through the subsidiaries of these parent companies. In 2005, Royal Dutch Shell plc became the single parent company of Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and of The “Shell” Transport and Trading Company, p.l.c., now The Shell Transport and Trading Company Limited. In 2005, the Donovan’s beat us to the domain name “RoyalDutchShellPlc.com” and we lost a costly legal battle to seize it. Royal Dutch Shell plc (the Company) is a public limited company registered in England and Wales and headquartered in The Hague, the Netherlands. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Shell News Archive 3 November 2005

From Our Shell News Archive 3 November 2005

openprovider.co.uk: The EU domain battle

A recent example of an expensive lawsuit is the Shell case for royaldutchshellplc.com and royaldutchshellgroup.com. Shell lost this case. So far the lawsuit has cost millions and the domain still doesn’t belong to them.”: Posted Thursday 3 November 2005

Forbes/AFX News Limited: Shell and unions reach compromise, work at Dutch refineries to resume today: “…the CNV Chemie union confirmed that Shell has agreed to continue to allow its workers to retire at the age of 60.”: Thursday 3 November 2005 read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

THE TIMES (City diary): Hostile domain

THE TIMES (City diary): Hostile domain

By Martin Waller

June 21, 2005

ROYAL DUTCH/SHELL is locked in a dispute with an 88-year-old war veteran who saw action in the Burma campaign and now runs a website, http://royaldutchshellplc.com, that publishes material critical of the oil company.

The roots of the row between Shell and Alfred Donovan go back to the early 1990s and have to do with earlier marketing campaigns. Mr Donovan and his son John say they do not want money for the site, which Shell unaccountably failed to register.

But they will not hand over the rights to the domain name until the company “gets rid of the management” responsible for its various woes, notably last year’s reserves scandal. (I thought they had.) Shell is going to the Geneva-based arbiter of such disputes next month to try to strip the Donovans of the right to the name. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Royal Dutch Shell disputes domain name

BigOil.net: Netherlands/UK: Royal Dutch Shell disputes domain name

Posted 10 June 2005

Shell has called on the World Intellectual Property Organization to rule on the use of the domain name www.royaldutchshellplc.com, which was bought by anti-Shell campaigner Alfred Donovan following the company’s publication of its name once its two parent companies are merged in summer 2005, Royal Dutch Shell PLC.

The website contains negative media articles about Shell. Shell hopes that Donovan will be banned from using the domain name.

Comment by Alfred Donovan: This is not a fair and balanced article. I am not campaigning against Shell but against its hopelessly incompetent senior executives, Jeroen van der Veer and Malcolm Brinded. These gentleman are implicated in the reserves scandal and have turned a blind eye to other serious misconduct at Shell. The libel courts are open to them if they wish to challenge my assertions. My website actually contains positive and negative media articles about Shell. It is not my fault that the negative articles have been far more frequent than the positive ones, mainly because of the reserves scandal. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
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