Campaign group, Baby Milk Action, has refused to transfer a domain name to Nestlé as demanded by lawyers acting for the World's Largest Food Company. A deadline of 29 September was given by lawyers last week. The site, which gives an overview of concerns about Nestlé business activities and serves as a portal for further information from expert analysts, is to be launched on 4 October, the start of this year's International Nestlé-Free Week and the 20th anniversary of the launch of a boycott of Nestlé over its aggressive marketing of baby milk. The site has the theme: "Nestlé's actions speak louder than its words" and experts provide independent analysis of various aspects of Nestlé's business including baby milk marketing, treatment of workers, child slavery in its cocoa supply chain, destruction of water resources etc.

The site has been previewed on the 'behind the scenes' blog of Baby Milk Action's Campaigns and Networking Coordinator, Mike Brady, since the beginning of August.

Mike Brady said: 

I totally reject Nestlé's pretence that the site breaches Nestlé copyright and the absurd idea that it was "passing off" as a company site - its purpose is clearly stated and people are directed to Nestlé's own site to read its claims. The Swiss media is currently full of the case of a Nestlé secret agent who passed herself off as a campaigner to infiltrate an advocacy organisation and dupe people into providing sensitive and confidential information, so I think we are the ones with reason to worry. I question why Nestlé wanted to seize the domain name just days before the official launch of the site. Was it to hit us financially by requiring publicity for the site to be re-done? Or, as with the case of its infiltration of the Swiss ATTAC group, was it planning to mislead people into supplying sensitive information in the belief they were communicating with those monitoring Nestlé malpractice? We don't know what Nestlé would put on the domain and have good reason to be suspicious, so we have refused to hand it over.

While retaining ownership of the domain name demanded by Nestlé, the site launch is going ahead with the information on the site unchanged using the domain name: www.nestlecritics.org

The case of the Nestlé agent, "Sara Meylan", is described on the Nestlé Critics site. She was employed through the security firm, SECURITAS, and infiltrated ATTAC Switzerland, where she joined the editorial board of a book also examining various aspects of Nestlé's business activities. The following is an extract from the Nestlé Critics site:

"As a co-author she had complete access to the group's documentation and to all Attac's email contacts around the world, including information on union members in Colombia fighting for workers-rights in Nestle plants. Such information is potentially dangerous in the wrong hands; in the past people have been killed just for being active organizers especially in Colombia.... The mole was meticulous; the reports on the authors of the book read like real police files and included their names, ages, e-mail addresses and photographs, character traits, physical and ethnic descriptions, ideas and degree of political activism. This human raw material was collected by Sara for 30 francs an hour and converted into merchandise by Securitas to be sold to Nestlé without the knowledge of the authors. The authors went pale while the mole's report was being read, dismayed at the extent to which the details of their private life were coldly revealed for hard cash."

The current boycott of Nestlé was launched on 4 October 1988 in the United States and has now been launched in a total of 20 countries. Nestlé is targeted as monitoring around the world find it to be responsible for more violations of the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and subsequent, relevant Resolutions of the World Health Assembly than any other company. According to UNICEF: "Marketing practices that undermine breastfeeding are potentially hazardous wherever they are pursued: in the developing world, WHO estimates that some 1.5 million children die each year because they are not adequately breastfed. These facts are not in dispute." 

The boycott has forced some changes in Nestlé policy and ended specific cases of malpractice, but violations remain systematic, except in those countries where the campaign’s parallel strategy of bringing in independently monitored and enforced legislation implementing the Code and Resolutions has succeeded.

Publicly Nestlé claims that the boycott has little impact, but last year Nestlé's Global Public Affair Manager admitted that Nestlé is "widely boycotted" (see http://www.babymilkaction.org/press/press6july07.html). GMIPoll found that Nestlé is one of the four most boycotted companies on the planet. The business consultancy ECOFACT recently listed Nestlé as one of the world's most controversial companies for being: "consistently and severely criticized by the world’s media and NGOs".

For further information

Contact Mike Brady on 020 3239 9222 or Patti Rundall on  07786 523493

For concerns about Nestlé business practices see the Nestlé Critics website www.nestlecritics.org - bookmark this page for future reference.

Notes for editors

1. In their bid to close the site, Nestlé's lawyers attempted to argue it was "passing off" as an official Nestlé website and attempted to assert copyright over a boycott image that has been in use for most of the 20 years of the boycott and the colours used on the website, in all their shades.

2. Nestlé demanded the domain name initially publicised for the Nestlé's Action site (nestlesa.org) be transferred to it by 29 September, arguing it was an infringement of the Swiss name of the company, Nestlé S.A. - though Nestlé does not use any domain name containing nestlesa and at least one domain name containing this construction is a page of advertising links (nestlesa.com). Baby Milk Action has refused to hand over the domain name because of Nestlé's past history of duping campaigners into providing sensitive and confidential information.  However, as it was never the intention to gain traffic by mistake, the domain name nestlecritics.org is being used for the official launch of the site. It remains to be seen whether Nestlé will continue its demand for the original domain name or challenge the nestlecritics.org name.

3. The World Intellectual Property Organisation has already ruled in favour of campaigners in similar disputes. For example in a complaint brought by Bridgestone the WIPO arbitration panel ruled: “Panel concludes that the exercise of free speech for criticism and commentary also demonstrates a right or legitimate interest in the domain name under Paragraph 4 (c)(iii). The Internet is above all a framework for global communication, and the right to free speech should be one of the foundations of Internet law" and, regarding possible trade mark infringement: "....the Respondent has legitimate fair use and free speech rights and interests in respect of the Domain Name, and the Respondent has not registered and used the Domain Name in bad faith.”