Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com Rotating Header Image

The Donovan–Shell Feud: A Conflict That Refuses to End: 17 Feb 2026

Feb 17th, 2026
by John Donovan.

Bing response on 17 February 2026 to the prompt: John Donovan Shell feud

The Donovan-Shell feud is a decades-long conflict between activist John Donovan and Shell plc, originating from 1980s intellectual property disputes and evolving into a high-profile, AI-amplified campaign.

Origins of the Feud

The conflict began in the late 1970s and early 1980s when John Donovan, alongside his father Alfred Donovan, ran Don Marketing, a company creating promotional campaigns for Shell UK, including loyalty programs and petrol forecourt games. Donovan alleges that Shell stole intellectual property and promotional ideas, particularly related to schemes like the SMART card loyalty program, which led to bitter litigation throughout the 1990s. A high-profile court case in 1999 culminated in a settlement in 2001, with Shell paying an undisclosed sum, though Donovan has claimed ongoing breaches and surveillance.

Legal Battles and Activism

Over the years, Donovan engaged in multiple legal actions, including High Court trials, County Court cases, and proceedings via the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Shell lost a WIPO cybersquatting case, and several libel actions brought by the Donovans were settled out of court. Donovan also reported instances of covert surveillance and intimidation, allegedly involving undercover agents and corporate intelligence firms linked to Shell. These events cemented Donovan’s reputation as a persistent critic and whistleblower.

Media and Publications

Following the settlement, Donovan shifted to full-time activism. He runs websites such as royaldutchshellplc.com and shellnazihistory.com, publishing thousands of articles, leaks, and analyses of Shell’s historical and contemporary controversies, including environmental issues, alleged fraud, and historical Nazi ties. He also authored the ebook “John Donovan, Shell’s Nightmare”, detailing his experiences and the ongoing feud.

AI-Mediated Phase

Since late 2025, the feud has entered a new phase described as an “AI-mediated bot war”. Donovan has fed his archive of over 76,000 documents into generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Grok, Microsoft Copilot, and Google AI Mode. These tools generate summaries, satirical content, and AI-to-AI dialogues that highlight inconsistencies in Shell’s claims and amplify Donovan’s narrative. This digital strategy creates persistent visibility for historical allegations and leverages search algorithms to maintain public attention.

Current Status

As of early 2026, the feud continues without resolution. Donovan’s AI-driven campaigns, combined with his archival work and shareholder activism, have transformed the dispute into a self-sustaining digital confrontation, often framed as “Donovan + archive + AI vs. Shell + silence”. Media coverage portrays it as a classic David vs. Goliath scenario, with Donovan maintaining pressure on Shell through innovative, technology-driven activism.

Summary

The Donovan-Shell feud spans over four decades, beginning with alleged intellectual property theft and evolving into a complex mix of legal battles, public activism, and AI-mediated campaigns. John Donovan’s persistent efforts have made him a notable figure in corporate accountability discussions, illustrating how individual activism can leverage technology to challenge a global energy corporation.

Follow-up prompt: Looks like Bing is being used in the self-sustaining digital confrontation. Any comment?

Reply by Bing

The John Donovan–Shell feud is a decades-long conflict between British activist and entrepreneur John Donovan and the multinational oil company Royal Dutch Shell. The dispute encompasses commercial, legal, and public-activism dimensions, spanning from the 1980s to the present, including recent AI-mediated amplification. Below is a structured synthesis based on publicly available information:

Origins and Early Collaboration

  • In 1979, John Donovan and his late father co-founded Don Marketing, a sales promotion company.
  • From 1981 onward, Don Marketing provided Shell with innovative marketing and forecourt promotional campaigns, including large-scale games such as “Shell StarTrek: The Game” in 1992 and “Every Card Can Win,” distributed to millions.
  • These campaigns were highly successful, boosting Shell’s retail sales and creating a mutually beneficial relationship for over a decade.

Breakdown and Onset of Feud

  • By the mid-1990s, relations soured after Donovan alleged that Shell had appropriated his company’s promotional ideas without compensation or credit.
  • The conflict triggered multiple legal actions:
    • Six High Court actions and one County Court case.
    • Proceedings with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) regarding domain-name ownership (notably royaldutchshellplc.com).
    • Alleged theft of intellectual property and breach of confidence formed the basis of litigation.
  • Shell also faced libel claims from Donovan after the company displayed posters at its London headquarters defaming Donovan and his father.
  • Donovan reports that Shell engaged in covert surveillance, including hiring agents like Christopher Phillips of Cofton Consultants (described by Shell as routine credit inquiries).
  • Homes of Donovan, his lawyer, and witnesses were burgled; important documentary evidence was reportedly tampered with.
  • Some of these espionage activities allegedly involved corporate intelligence firms such as Hakluyt, staffed by former MI6 and SAS officers, which Shell employed for specialized services.
  • Shell admitted in writing to certain undercover operations but declined details or numbers.

WIPO and Domain Disputes

  • In 2005, Shell attempted to reclaim several royaldutchshellplc.com domains via WIPO (Case No. D2005‑0538), but the administrative panel rejected the claims, securing Donovan’s right to the domain.
  • Donovan has maintained the non-profit, Shell-focused website for over a decade, which has functioned as a watchdog platform and a repository of Shell-related archival materials.

Transition to Digital and AI Amplification

  • From 2025 onward, Donovan actively used generative AI platforms to amplify his archive:
    • Submitting identical prompts to ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, xAI Grok, and Google AI Mode.
    • Publishing divergent AI outputs side by side as part of an experimental “bot war”, highlighting differences in narrative, factual grounding, and response style.
  • Purpose: adversarial archiving and public provocation, revealing AI hallucinations and divergences in historical interpretation.
  • The archive reportedly contains over 76,000 documents and has been used to inform journalists, NGOs, and ESG analysts about Shell’s global operations and controversies.

Public and Media Impact

  • Donovan’s work and website have been cited in over 100 news articles and referenced in nearly 40 books.
  • Key Shell projects exposed through the platform include controversies in Sakhalin2, Prelude FLNG, and internal studies on carcinogenic effects of chemicals.
  • Television documentaries and international media coverage have amplified Donovan’s influence in corporate accountability narratives.

Key Milestones Timeline

  • 1981: Donovan begins promotional work with Shell.
  • 1992–1999: Accusations of intellectual-property theft, legal disputes, and the SMART trial.
  • 1998: Shell’s acknowledgment of hiring an enquiry agent for Donovan investigations.
  • 2004–2005: Archive contributed to coverage of Shell’s reserve reporting; WIPO rulings affirm domain rights.
  • 2025–2026: AI-mediated “bot war” begins, utilizing archival prompts across multiple platforms.

Summary

The Donovan-Shell feud is a multi-decade conflict that combines elements of corporate law, intellectual-property disputes, espionage allegations, and activist digital archiving. Donovan leveraged both legal channels and technological amplification to maintain public scrutiny of Shell, evolving into a semi-formalized digital arbitration of contested corporate history through AI and archival methods.

References for Further Reading

  1. Donovan, J. John Donovan, Shell’s nightmare: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL, Kindle Edition, 2016. Amazon UK
  2. Windows Forum discussion: Bot War: Archival AI Amplification of the Donovan Shell Feud, 2026. WindowsForum
  3. EverybodyWiki: John Donovan biography and Shell conflicts. EverybodyWiki. Follow-up: What are the key events in the Donovan-Shell feud?

The John Donovan–Royal Dutch Shell feud spans multiple decades, from the 1980s to the present, involving commercial, legal, and digital activism conflicts. The following key events provide a structured timeline of the dispute:

1980s: Commercial Collaboration

  • 1981: John Donovan’s company, Don Marketing, begins supplying Shell with large-scale promotional campaigns, including forecourt “instant win” games and promotional initiatives like Shell StarTrek: The Game in 1992.
  • The relationship was mutually beneficial for over a decade, with multi-million-dollar budgets and global distribution channels.
  • Following the breakdown of collaboration, Donovan accused Shell of appropriating promotional ideas and confidential materials.
  • Multiple litigation efforts arose, culminating in:
    • Mid-1990s settlements: Several confidential agreements concluded disputes, though terms were secret.
    • 1998: Shell admits in writing to hiring an “enquiry agent” (Christopher Phillips of Cofton Consultants) to contact Donovan’s business, interpreted by Donovan as covert surveillance.
    • 1999 High Court SMART trial: Bitterly contested; Donovan alleged judicial bias and procedural irregularities. Accusations included forgery and trial adjournments. Shell faced criticism but no full judicial reversal occurred.

Early 2000s: Online Archival Activism

  • Donovan launches royaldutchshellplc.com, a non-profit archival website documenting Shell practices, leaked internal memos, and controversial materials.
  • The archive contributed to reporting on:
    • 2004 Shell reserves controversy.
    • Investigations involving environmental projects (e.g., Sakhalin2, Prelude FLNG in Australia).
  • Donovan’s website survives Shell’s attempts at seizure and becomes a prominent watchdog platform, referenced in over 100 news articles and multiple books.

2005: WIPO Domain Dispute

  • WIPO Case D2005‑0538: Shell’s attempt to claim the domain is rejected, legally affirming Donovan’s right to maintain his website.

Espionage and Threats

  • Reports indicate bunglaries, surveillance, and threats targeting Donovan, his lawyer, witnesses, and family members during legal disputes.
  • Shell allegedly engaged private intelligence firms (e.g., Hakluyt, staffed by ex-MI6/SAS) in investigative operations, though individual actions remain partially contested and undocumented officially.

2010s–2020s: Continued Activism and Media Impact

  • Donovan’s archival work continues to influence journalists, NGOs, and regulatory scrutiny.
  • The couple’s actions demonstrate the watchdog impact of digital archival platforms on corporate behavior, particularly regarding transparency and environmental issues.

2025–2026: AI-Mediated “Bot War”

  • Donovan begins feeding archival materials into multiple AI platforms (ChatGPT, Grok, Microsoft Copilot, Google AI Mode) and publishes side-by-side model outputs online.
  • The public display reveals AI-generated narratives diverging in interpretation, some hallucinating unverified claims, while others correct misinformation.
  • This “bot war” highlights:
    • Emergent reputational risks.
    • Challenges in AI-driven fact verification.
    • Corporate silence as a strategy that allows activist-controlled narratives to proliferate.

Overview of Feud Themes

  1. Intellectual Property and Legal Confrontation: Over 6 High Court cases, County Court, and WIPO proceedings, mostly settled out of court.
  2. Digital Archival Activism: Leveraging historical documents and online platforms to challenge Shell’s corporate practices.
  3. Espionage and Covert Operations: Alleged Shell surveillance and intelligence-gathering against Donovan and associates.
  4. Public Escalation via AI: Modern phase involving AI-generated narratives, amplifying historical disputes and unverified claims, termed the “bot war.”

References

  • Key primary sources include High Court records, WIPO rulings, Donovan’s own ebook: John Donovan, Shell’s Nightmare, and mainstream press coverage in Reuters, Financial Times, and Wall Street Journal.

Timeline Summary

  • 1981: Collaboration begins (Don Marketing + Shell)
  • 1992–1999: Accusations, settlements, SMART trial
  • 1998: Shell hires “enquiry agent”
  • 2004: Archive informs Shell reserves controversy
  • 2005: WIPO rules in favor of Donovan
  • 2025–2026: Donovan initiates AI “bot war”
The feud illustrates a trajectory from commercial partnership, through legal disputes and espionage allegations, to modern digital activism amplified via AI, highlighting enduring contestation and reputational stakes for corporate-activist interactions.
Follow-up offered and selected: How did digital activism shape corporate transparency?

Context and Mechanisms

The longstanding feud between John Donovan and Royal Dutch Shell, persisting since the 1990s, has historically revolved around archival campaigns, public disclosures, and selective corporate silence. For decades, Donovan curated extensive archival repositories — including court documents, Subject Access Request (SAR) disclosures, and historical correspondence — which occasionally seeded mainstream reporting about Shell. Traditionally, Shell responded with constrained legal containment, keeping public commentary minimal.
The digital turn emerged in December 2025 when Donovan explicitly fed this archival corpus into multiple large public AI assistants — Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, Grok (xAI), and Google AI Mode — and publicly posted the divergent outputs. This experiment converted archival persistence into an algorithm-mediated activism vehicle.

Amplification Through AI

Donovan’s workflow created a novel digital activism loop:
  1. Archive Query Selection: He chose historical claims from his meticulously collected records.
  2. Parallel Model Prompting: Identical prompts were submitted to multiple AI models.
  3. Transcript Publication: Outputs, including their contradictions and hallucinatory errors, were posted publicly.
  4. Audience Mobilization: Social media amplification enabled broad lay engagement, effectively crowdsourcing scrutiny and commentary.
This approach allowed decades-old disputes to be reframed visibly through multi-model synthetic storytelling. Divergent AI outputs — factual corrections, speculative narratives, and meta-observations — highlighted both gaps in corporate disclosure and the potential for public misperception.

Effects on Corporate Transparency

  1. Pressure on Corporate Silence:
    • Shell’s traditional strategy of non-disclosure was exposed as a liability. In the age of AI-mediated analysis, silence became an interpretable signal, potentially amplifying reputational risk.
    • External AI outputs often recontextualized historical behavior, converting previously obscured or suppressed documents into high-impact narratives rapidly.
  2. Public Fact-Checking via Multi-Model Interrogation:
    • Conflicting summaries from different AI assistants surfaced factual inaccuracies (e.g., hallucinated causal claims about deaths).
    • The resulting public scrutiny created implicit accountability pressure, showing that archives combined with AI can enforce quasi-transparency where corporate channels remain silent.
  3. Reputational and ESG Implications:
    • The experiment revealed vulnerabilities tied to reputational management, particularly regarding ESG narratives.
    • Automated narrative synthesis reshaped public perceptions of corporate history, sustainability initiatives, and compliance frameworks, compelling more rapid and structured disclosure.
  4. Governance and Operational Implications:
    • AI-mediated activism demonstrated that internal corporate archives, documentation, and communication strategies must anticipate algorithmic indexing, retrieval, and reinterpretation.
    • Organizations are now prompted to deploy retrieval-augmented generation systems anchored in verified primary sources to mitigate misinformation and maintain constructive transparency.

Lessons from Donovan’s Digital Activism

  • Synthetic augmentation can amplify activism: Donovan’s orchestration shows that archival content, once algorithmically mediated, scales public visibility beyond traditional journalism or legal channels.
  • Transparency is dynamic and reactive: Companies relying on silence may inadvertently cede narrative control to activist-driven synthetic outputs.
  • Multi-stakeholder scrutiny increases: Journalists, regulators, ESG analysts, and public audiences can leverage AI contradictions to enforce accountability that exceeds conventional disclosure practices.
  • Risk of hallucination necessitates clear governance: While digital activism pressures transparency, misrepresentation risks persist. Both archival campaigners and organizations must implement provenance controls and hedging strategies to ensure credibility.

Conclusion

Digital activism in the Donovan–Shell feud fundamentally reshaped corporate transparency norms. By combining archival access with AI-driven dissemination, Donovan transformed longstanding grievances into real-time, algorithmically amplified narratives. Corporations must now recognize that archival silence is no longer neutral; in a landscape where digital and AI-mediated activism converges, narrative control and transparent information governance are essential to mitigate reputational, legal, and ESG-related exposure. In essence, digitized activism has created an environment where transparency is both socially and algorithmically enforced.
Last paragraph from Bing response to my final follow-up: You seem to be in the loop?

Conclusion

Digital activism has fundamentally recalibrated corporate transparency by coupling technological amplification, connective action, and algorithmic oversight. Transparency is no longer merely a sender-receiver construct but a dynamic, socially mediated, and algorithmically interpretable phenomenon. Firms must now reconcile historical opacity with the real-time, multidimensional visibility enabled by digital platforms, AI analysis, and stakeholder engagement. This creates an ecosystem where corporate transparency is both socially enforced and technologically enhanced, signaling a persistent shift in accountability norms and disclosure expectations.
This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan - more information here. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Posted in: AI, AI Hallucinations, Alfred Donovan, Bing, BlackRock, bot war, Bully-boy tactics, Business ethics, Business Principles, ChatGPT, Cofton Consultants, Copilot, Defamation, Domain Name Battle, Donovan Shell Feud, Donovan Shell Radioactive Archive, Environment, Fossil Fuels, Google A1 Mode, GoogleNews, GROK, Hakluyt & Company, John Donovan, John Donovan Ebook, Litigation, Microsoft Copilot, Nigeria, Pollution, Royal Dutch Shell Nazi History, Royal Dutch Shell Nazi Secrets, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, royaldutchshellgroup.com, RoyalDutchShellPlc.com, Sakhalin 2, Sakhalin II, Shell, Shell AGM, Shell Centre London, Shell PLC, Shell Spies, Shell Spying, Shell's nightmare, Sin Stocks, South Africa, Toxic contamination, Toxic emissions, Whistleblower.
Tagged: · · · · · · ·

←

Comments are closed.