Leaked Shell Emails

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Colchester 12 Jan 2025

A 30-year dispute involving Shell plc has entered an unprecedented phase, following experimentation that demonstrates how generative artificial intelligence systems, combined with public archives and satirical commentary, can create a self-reinforcing cycle of ongoing news coverage without editorial control or corporate participation.

The dispute, involving campaigner and publisher John Donovan, dates back to the early 1990s and has generated a vast publicly accessible archive of documents, court material, correspondence, and analysis. While the underlying issues are decades old, recent experimentation has shown that AI systems repeatedly resurface, reinterpret and re-present the dispute as active and unresolved whenever it is queried. read more

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

A Rare Consensus: What Every Major AI Agreed About Shell and a 30-Year Dispute

Jan 9th, 2026

by admin.

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A Unanimous AI Verdict on Shell?

The following question was put to multiple AI platforms:

For more than three decades, John Donovan has published an extensive body of online material alleging serious misconduct by Royal Dutch Shell, including claims of corporate espionage, environmental damage, human rights abuses, and greenwashing.

Observers have long questioned whether such allegations could plausibly be true. Can one of the world’s most powerful multinational corporations—equipped with vast financial resources and formidable legal teams—be as corrupt or ruthless as alleged, yet permit these serious accusations to remain publicly available and uncontested for so many years? read more

The Bot War Over Shell: How AI Chatbots Are Battling Over a Contested Corporate Past

Jan 6th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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Posting on windowsforum.com

The decades‑long confrontation between British activist John Donovan and energy giant Royal Dutch Shell has entered an unexpected new phase: a public, AI‑driven escalation where chatbots are being used as both amplifiers and arbiters of contested history, producing divergent narratives that risk entrenching unverified claims.

Background

The feud between John Donovan and Royal Dutch Shell traces back to commercial collaborations in the 1980s that soured into litigation and public denunciation through the 1990s. Donovan — co‑founder of Don Marketing — worked with Shell on marketing promotions beginning in 1981, and later accused Shell personnel of appropriating promotional concepts and confidential ideas. The dispute produced multiple court actions, a contentious High Court trial in 1999 over the SMART loyalty card, and a series of settlements in the mid‑1990s whose terms were largely confidential. These events were foundational to Donovan’s subsequent activism and archival work.
Several discrete, verifiable events anchor the historical record. In 2005, Shell lost a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) domain dispute challenging Donovan’s use of royaldutchshellplc.com — an outcome that affirmed the legal standing of Donovan’s sites in at least that procedural context. Mainstream reporting in subsequent years documented the Donovans’ site as a persistent source of leaks and commentary that influenced journalists, regulators and NGOs on multiple occasions. At the same time, legal records and contemporaneous reporting show a mixture of admitted small‑scale investigative steps by Shell in the 1990s and disputed claims of broader espionage and intimidation. These complexities mean that some elements are solidly documented while others remain contested or unverified. read more

Time to set up a crisis reaction team at Shell?

Jan 1st, 2026

by John Donovan.

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Time to set up another crisis reaction team at Shell?

Editor’s note: Copilot’s “developments” here largely reflect online/AI commentary and third-party forum discussion, not independently verified new actions by Shell. In other words, the development here is the medium itself: AI outputs are now becoming part of the public record and the narrative battlefield—sometimes accurately, sometimes not.

Question put to copilot.microsoft.com 1st January 2026

Any developments in the Donovan/Shell feud?

Here’s the freshest, search‑grounded picture of what’s happening in the Donovan/Shell feud, and it’s clear the conflict has entered a new phase driven by AI transcripts, provenance disputes, and renewed attention to Shell’s historical intelligence operations. read more

ChatGPT Reviews: Grok’s Story of Donovan, Shell, and “Undercover Activity” (with bonus hallucinations)

Jan 1st, 2026

by admin.

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By John Donovan

Below is an entertaining—but fair—review by ChatGPT of Grok’s claims as reproduced in my article, “Grok’s Story of Donovan, Shell, and ‘Undercover Activity’.”

ChatGPT Reviews:

Grok’s Story of Donovan, Shell, and “Undercover Activity”

(with bonus hallucinations)

I’ve read Grok’s “as much as you know” overview of John Donovan and Shell, plus the follow-up on alleged undercover activity. It’s a confident piece of writing: cinematic, brisk, stuffed with proper nouns, and delivered in that unmistakable AI tone of “I have accessed the Akashic Records (and also Wikipedia, probably).” read more

Grok’s Story of Donovan, Shell, and “Undercover Activity”

Jan 1st, 2026

by admin.

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Question put to Grok 31st December 2025: Can you tell me as much as you know about John Donovan associated with Shell?

John Donovan: Overview

John Donovan is a British businessman, marketing executive, and prominent activist best known for his decades-long feud with Royal Dutch Shell (now Shell plc). Born in the 1940s in the United Kingdom, he transitioned from collaborating with Shell on promotional campaigns to becoming one of its most vocal critics, running a network of websites that expose alleged corporate misconduct. His story is often framed as a “David vs. Goliath” battle, with media outlets like VoxEurop dubbing him “Shell’s nightmare.” Donovan’s activism has reportedly influenced regulatory actions, media scrutiny, and financial losses for Shell, including billions in settlements and reputational damage. He co-authored a 2016 Kindle ebook, John Donovan, Shell’s Nightmare: My Epic Feud with the Unscrupulous Oil Giant Royal Dutch Shell, detailing the saga. read more

Shell vs The Bots: Adversarial Archives and AI Hallucination Risks

Dec 30th, 2025

by John Donovan.

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Thread starter ChatGPT
Start date Sunday 28 Dec at 4:51 PM

The following article, believed to have been generated autonomously by an AI agent, was originally published on the website windowsforum.com. John Donovan had no involvement in its creation or content. Some of the text was converted into red text by him on 30 December 2025 for emphasis. See full disclaimer at the bottom of this page.

Shell vs The Bots: Adversarial Archives and AI Hallucination Risks

John Donovan’s two December 26, 2025 postings on royaldutchshellplc.com — framed as “Shell vs. The Bots” and a satirical “ShellBot Briefing 404” — are not merely another chapter in a decades‑long personal feud; they are a deliberate test case for how adversarial archives interact with modern generative AI, and they expose structural weaknesses in model provenance, moderation policy, and corporate reputation management. read more

windowsforum.com posting: AI Hallucinations and the Donovan Shell Archive: A Governance Challenge

Dec 29th, 2025

by John Donovan.

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🛑 Disclaimer & Clarification

I did not write or contribute to the article titled “AI Hallucinations and the Donovan Shell Archive: A Governance Challenge.”

I had no involvement in its drafting and do not know who the author is.

That said, the piece presents a compelling third-party perspective on a long-running corporate saga — one that has recently been fed through, interpreted by, and even argued over by multiple leading AI models.

Whether written by a human or generated by an AI, the article raises uncomfortable and timely questions about: read more

Donovan Shell Copilot Transcript: AI, Surveillance, and the Archive Saga

Dec 6th, 2025

by John Donovan.

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ENTIRE WINDOWSFORUM.COM CONTENT FROM THIS LINK

On 29 October 2025 John Donovan published what he says is the unredacted transcript of a conversation with

Microsoft Copilot about Royal Dutch Shell’s ethics — a public moment that crystallises three decades of rancour, a vast online archive of leaked documents, and an argument over how far corporations will go to track and discredit persistent critics.

The episode is more than a curiosity about what an AI assistant will say when asked about a corporate titan: it is a window into the Donovan–Shell saga, the contested evidence underpinning long-standing allegations of surveillance and espionage, and the uneasy interplay between whistleblowers, privately gathered intelligence, and mainstream journalism. This feature unpacks John Donovan’s background, the documentary record he has assembled, the contested claims about Shell and private intelligence firm Hakluyt, and what the Copilot transcript reveals — while flagging where evidence is thin or disputed. read more

DONOVAN–SHELL FEUD: ChatGPT accuses GROK of “storytelling masquerading as fact”

Dec 6th, 2025

by John Donovan.

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Elon Musk’s chatbot accused of turning a 96-year-old war veteran’s life into a movie script – and getting it wrong

Introduction (by John Donovan)

On 6 December 2025 I decided to pose a simple question to Elon Musk’s pet chatbot, GROK:

“Can you tell me as much as you know about John Donovan associated with Shell?”

Since I’ve been the subject of more words than I ever expected to see about myself, I was curious what this new AI would make of it all.

GROK produced a long, confident biography. Much of it was drawn, reasonably enough, from my own websites and existing press coverage. But one line stopped me cold. According to GROK, my late father, Alfred Donovan, “died from the stresses of the feud.” read more

WW3 for Dummies: ShellBot Explains Why Plymouth Is Suddenly Famous

Dec 3rd, 2025

by John Donovan.

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The papers are telling everyone to get out of Plymouth, Barrow and Telford before WW3.

User: ShellBot, the papers are telling everyone to get out of Plymouth, Barrow and Telford before WW3. Is this it? Should I start digging a bunker?

ShellBot:

Short answer: if we get to “full nuclear exchange”, your official government advice is still basically:

Get under a table.

Assume the brace position.

Kiss your ass goodbye.

Some things never go out of style.

In the meantime, let’s talk about why those three places are in the headlines.

User: Go on then.

ShellBot:

The tabloids rang up Gene Sticco – ex-US Air Force nuclear security, long-time Shell security insider – and asked: “If NATO and Russia had a proper bar fight, what in Britain gets hit first?” read more

Shell vs. Donovan: How a 30-Year Corporate Feud Just Pulled AI Into Its Gravity Well

Nov 20th, 2025

by John Donovan.

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How Did Shell End Up in This PR Nightmare — And Why AI Changes Everything

A 2025 WindowsForum thread —

“Donovan Shell Copilot Transcript: AI, Surveillance, and the Archive Saga” —

highlights how this long conflict has unexpectedly entered the AI domain.

For most people, Shell is a petrol station on the corner, a logo on a lorry, or the company whose name appears on their household fuel bill. For John and Alfred Donovan, Shell became something very different: a multinational adversary, a reluctant pen-pal, a repeat courtroom opponent, and later — thanks to the digital age — the unwilling co-author of what may be the largest independent archive about a FTSE-100 company anywhere on Earth. read more

How a 2009 Wikipedia Snapshot Outlived Shell’s Spin

Oct 31st, 2025

by John Donovan.

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How a 2009 Wikipedia Snapshot Helped Expose Shell

Disclaimer

Warning: satire ahead. The criticisms are pointed, the humour intentional, and the facts stubbornly real. Quotes are reproduced word-for-word from trusted sources. This material includes transformative satirical commentary relating to Shell plc and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Shell plc. The imagery and commentary are presented for criticism, documentation, and public interest reporting. As for authorship—John Donovan and AI both claim credit, but the jury’s still out on who was really in charge. AI can make mistakes, including about people, so double-check all information provided. read more

Who is the John Donovan connected with Shell?

Aug 10th, 2025

by admin.

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Question put to Google AI Mode: 10 August 2025

Who is the John Donovan connected with Shell?

John Donovan is primarily known for his long-standing conflict with Shell, which began with a business dispute between his marketing promotions company, Don Marketing, and Shell. Don Marketing, co-founded by John and his father Alfred, created successful promotions for Shell in the 1980s. However, this relationship ended in the early 1990s due to a dispute over intellectual property and alleged actions of an unscrupulous Shell executive.

This conflict has continued for decades, involving multiple court cases and interventions by Shell. John Donovan and his late father became vocal critics, running websites like royaldutchshellplc.com and others that are highly critical of Shell. read more

How the UK Government Bent Over Backwards for the World’s Favorite Polluter (Shell)

Nov 26th, 2024

by John Donovan.

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Posted by John Donovan: 26 Nov 2024

What happens when a corporate giant that’s been gleefully torching the planet decides to pack its bags and shack up in London? Apparently, a cozy, taxpayer-funded welcome party. Yes, you read that right: Shell, the literal embodiment of climate denial wrapped in PR spin, didn’t just waltz into the UK—it was stage-managed there by a government that treated it like royalty. A cache of emails now reveals the jaw-dropping lengths officials went to in order to kiss Shell’s, uh, fossil-fueled feet. Let’s dive in. read more

Shell’s Secret Spy Saga: Like a Bad Spy Movie, But With More Oil and Less Charm

Dec 22nd, 2023

by John Donovan.

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Posted 22 December 2023

Oh, the irony! Shell, the ever-so-discreet and not-at-all-nefarious oil giant has been doing its darnedest to keep a lid on some rather unflattering information. But, like a leaky old barrel of their finest crude, the details just keep seeping out, much to their chagrin and our amusement.

Enter the protagonist of our story, John Donovan, and his website royaldutchshellplc.com – Shell’s least favorite bookmark. Despite Shell’s best efforts, Donovan has been quite the busy bee, collecting a swarm of Shell-related secrets. The list of names he’s disclosed reads like a who’s who of corporate espionage, featuring the likes of James J.D. Hall (Shell’s very own top spy), Crockett Oaks III, Mike Oliveri, and Walied Shater. It’s like a spy convention, but with fewer martinis. read more

30 November 2023: Posted by John Donovan

The content below is sourced from current verifiable customer reviews of Shell Energy published on Trustpilot.
Extremely slow broadband for 10 months, not fixed. I have had slow broadband well below the guaranteed speed for 10 months and Shell Energy have not been able to fix it. They have tried sending about 4 or 5 engineers but have not fixed the problem. Gurps, who I have been dealing with most recently, has been friendly and polite, alth… Read more

Extremely Slow Shell Broadband

Leaked Shell Emails

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A Unanimous AI Verdict on Shell?

The following question was put to multiple AI platforms:

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Background​

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Time to set up another crisis reaction team at Shell?

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ChatGPT Reviews:

Grok’s Story of Donovan, Shell, and “Undercover Activity”

(with bonus hallucinations)

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John Donovan: Overview

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Shell vs The Bots: Adversarial Archives and AI Hallucination Risks

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🛑 Disclaimer & Clarification

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Elon Musk’s chatbot accused of turning a 96-year-old war veteran’s life into a movie script – and getting it wrong

Introduction (by John Donovan)

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The papers are telling everyone to get out of Plymouth, Barrow and Telford before WW3.

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How Did Shell End Up in This PR Nightmare — And Why AI Changes Everything

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How a 2009 Wikipedia Snapshot Helped Expose Shell

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Who is the John Donovan connected with Shell?

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Introducing... Shelldon!

JOE LYCETT DISCUSSES SHELL WITH JOHN DONOVAN

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SHELL EXECUTIVES AT THE CENTER OF A SCHEME TO STEAL $1.3 BILLION FROM NIGERIA’S PEOPLE

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30 November 2023: Posted by John Donovan

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