How a teenage “internet whizz” helped create the website Shell tried — and failed — to silence for three decades.
A Phantom Web Whizz Became Shell’s Digital Nemesis
In the mid-1990s, when the Internet still seemed like a passing fad and oil companies still lectured the world about “responsible energy,” a quiet digital operator answered a newspaper advertisement from John Donovan, the former Shell promotions partner turned corporate adversary.
The ad sought an “Internet whizz.”
What Shell got was something far worse—a digital insurgency that would haunt its reputation for decades.
By 1998, even the Evening Standard took notice: a small website run from Colchester had become a major reputational threat to one of the world’s largest corporations. That website—eventually mirrored as RoyalDutchShellPLC.com and ShellNews.net—would become Shell’s digital nemesis, archiving leaks, lawsuits, and internal documents that chronicled the oil giant’s ethical, environmental, and legal missteps.
Shell’s Historical Ties to Nazi Germany (1930s–1940s): In Shell’s case, the absence of an apology or restitution for its Nazi collaboration remains a point of contention that the company may eventually be forced to confront as part of repairing its public image.
A Masterclass in Dodging Climate Accountability
If you thought NGN was bad, just wait until you hear about Shell’s dirty tricks. While News Corp has been busy hacking phones, Shell has been spying on its own employees, critics and whistleblowers for decades.
Posted by John Donovan: 20 Dec 2024
