Entry 10 - etoy.SHARE

( http://www.etoy.com ~ New Media Art p.42)

Etoy is a Swiss corporation created by a group of European artists in 1994, inspired by corporations with strong brand identities. Because of the low costs of publishing a web site, a small group of people could easily present themselves with the same presence of a large corporation. Etoy acts as a "corporate sculpture" and follows the model of many business ventures by raising funds for projects and issuing stock to shareholders. Years after its creation, an online toy merchant called eToys threatened to sue Etoy for trademark infringement, despite Etoy being registered first. Etoy retaliated by offering points by attacking eToys with the goal of driving down the stock price of eToys. 1,798 people participated by criticizing eToys online, corrupting their server logs with false information and doing other internet attacks. eToys' stock declined by nearly 4.5 billion USD before dropping the lawsuit.

This is interesting to me because of the power that the low costs of the internet can give. With very little resources, one can gain enough of a presence to cause 4.5 billion dollars worth of damages. That amount of money is awe-inspiring, regardless of whether or not it was fully caused by Etoy's war.