The 1999
Adbusters, well known as fighters against corporate disinformation, injustices in the global economy and "physical and mental pollution", timely for the WTO Conference purchased three billboards in downtown Seattle. Featuring an image with the text "System Error - Type 2000 (progress)", the billboards were meant to challenge "... the WTO's agenda of global corporate growth and expose what isn't reflected in the United State's GNP - human and environmental capital."
At the same time RTMark went on-line with its spoof WTO website http://gatt.org. Shortly after its release WTO Director-General Mike Moore accused RTMark of attempting to "undermine WTO transparency" by copying the WTO website's design and using "domain names such as `www.gatt.org` and page titles such as 'World Trade Organization / GATT Home Page' which make it difficult for visitors to realize that these are fake pages." http://gatt.org is not the first time that RTMark has used website imitation aiming at rendering an entity more transparent. RTMark has performed the same "service" for
TEXTBLOCK 1/1 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611652/100438658922
An international organization designed to supervise and liberalize world trade. The WTO (World Trade Organization) is the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was created in 1947 and liberalized the world's trade over the next five decades. The WTO came into being on Jan. 1, 1995, with 104 countries as its founding members. The WTO is charged with policing member countries' adherence to all prior GATT agreements, including those of the last major GATT trade conference, the Uruguay Round (1986-94), at whose conclusion GATT had formally gone out of existence. The WTO is also responsible for negotiating and implementing new trade agreements. The WTO is governed by a Ministerial Conference, which meets every two years; a General Council, which implements the conference's policy decisions and is responsible for day-to-day administration; and a director-general, who is appointed by the Ministerial Conference. The WTO's headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland.