News and information on Shell Plc
In July 2005, the news media including The Wall Street Journal covered the domain name battle between Donovan and Shell over the domain name royaldutchshellplc.com.
When Shell tried to register it following the merger of the cinders of the Anglo-Dutch arms of the Royal Dutch Shell Group, its lawyers were horrified to discover that Shell’s arch-enemy had beat them to the registration. Shell issued proceedings but lost the case.
“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.“(Comment by John Donovan on 3 November 2012: We have no idea how much Shell paid out in legal costs for an action served in the USA with Shell paying all costs incurred by the World Intellectual Property Organisation. We do know how much it cost us in legal costs. Not one penny. We represented ourselves and vanquished Shell and its army of lawyers. We still own all of the Shell related domain names Shell unsuccessfully tried to seize.)
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
Law of the Internet by George B. Delta and Jeffrey H. Matsuura (Oct 2008)Excerpt from 2011-1 SUPPLEMENT 8-28
“The Sixth Circuit took the position that these negative domain names used in conjunction with Web sites that raised criticism of commercial conduct were forms of expression protected by the First Amendment.93 In some instances, critics of an organization register domain names using marks associated with the target company in order to prevent the company from using those domains or to use the domains to present Web content critical of the target organization. This type of dispute exists between Royal Dutch/Shell Group and Alfred Donovan, involving the domain name www.royaldutchshellplc.com.94″
Posted Friday 21 October 2005
Shell, the multinational petrol business, has failed to persuade the World Intellectual Property Organisation to order the transfer of various Shell domain names to it under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy. The Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy provides a quick arbitration procedure for disputes over top level domain names such as ‘.com’ and ‘.org’. WIPO is one of the accredited arbitration bodies that can hear domain name disputes under that procedure.
9 Sept 2005
Forum: Domain Disputes
royaldutchshellgroup.com
royaldutchshellplc.com
(and tellshell.org)
POSTING
WIPO case Shell
Someone asked me: How could they loose this? The first two should obviously belong to Shell. Why did they loose the case?
The main reason for the respondent winning the dispute is that:
– it can’t be proven that the current owner registered the domains with bad intentions and is using the domain with conflicting business interests with Shell.
– the names aren’t registered marks only company names.
By Cedric Manara
August 14, 2005
Here is an interesting decision: For years, Alfred Donovan has published news and reports on the firm Shell.
He has a website, which domain names are royaldutchshellgroup.com, royaldutchshellplc.com and tellshell.org.
In the case brought by Shell Petroleum, the Panel, as it put it, had
to “balance the Respondent’s “fair use” right to express opinions and provide information about the Complainant against the possible confusion of Internet users who reach the Respondent’s website (via any of his domain names) thinking they are accessing a site operated by or on behalf of the Complainant, an impression then dispelled by the disclaimer visible at the top of the first page of the site, which includes a link to the Complainant’s site.”
As a result of their gross incompetence this *scandal ridden multinational finds itself in a highly embarrassing position. It has publicly laid claim to the domain name and will consequently suffer a considerable loss of face with its shareholders, the public and its competitors, as a result of the unanimous verdict.Friday 12 August 2005: 01.35am ET
Unanimous verdict against Shell in Royal Dutch Shell PLC Domain Name proceedings
By John Donovan
A three person administrative panel appointed under the auspices of the World Intellectual Property Organisation has given a unanimous decision in favour of ShellNews.net website owner, Alfred Donovan, in respect of three Shell related domain names, including www.royaldutchshellplc.com
The WIPO decision document: http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/decisions/html/2005/d2005-0538.html
Saturday 25 June 2005
In a recent Wall Street Journal article (“Shell wages legal fight over web domain name”) staff reporter, Chip Cummins, described as a “rare coup”, Alfred Donovan’s registration of the domain name “royaldutchshellplc.com”.
News of Shell’s huge embarrassment on the eve of its unification dual AGM’s in The Hague and London has spread in newspapers and websites around the globe, with coverage in The Wall Street Journal, The London Times, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Gulf-Times in Qatar, plus Reuters, Yahoo! News, MSN Money, etc on the Internet. There has also been coverage in Russia, Germany, and countless news stories in the Netherlands, where the HQ of Royal Dutch Petroleum Company is located. The Reuters story (“Shell shareholders to back unification”) says that Mr Donovan “beat Shell to register the domain name”.
EBOOK TITLE: “SIR HENRI DETERDING AND THE NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
EBOOK TITLE: “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
EBOOK TITLE: “TOXIC FACTS ABOUT SHELL REMOVED FROM WIKIPEDIA: HOW SHELL BECAME THE MOST HATED BRAND IN THE WORLD” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
See our link list of over 500 articles by the FT, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, Forbes, Dow Jones Newswires, New York Times, CNBC etc, plus UK House of Commons Select Committee Hansard records, information on U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission website etc. all containing references to our Shell focussed websites, or our website founders Alfred and John Donovan. Includes TV documentary features in English and German, newspaper and magazine articles, radio interviews, newsletters etc. Plus academic papers, Stratfor intelligence reports and UK, U.S. and Australian state/parliamentary publications, also citing our Shell websites. Click on this link to see the entire list, all in date order with a link to an index of over 100 books also containing references to our non-profit websites and/or our activities.
John Donovan, the website owner
This is not a Shell website. That fact should be abundantly plain from the overall content of this home page and our sister Shell focussed websites, including shellnazihistory.com. Click on the Disclaimer link at top of this page for more information. You Can Be Sure Shell does not endorse or approve of this website. There are no subscription charges nor do we solicit or accept donations. No advertising is accepted. It is an entirely free to use non-commercial website drawing attention to the negative side of Shell. The Shell logo image with the white text used on this website, as per the above example, is in the public domain because its copyright has expired and its author is anonymous. It can be found here on WIKIMEDIA COMMONS. Use this link for Shell’s own website.
