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Monsanto demands Avaaz hands over all of its campaign data
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: March 18th, 2018
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/23/monsanto...
A US court will today hear a request from Monsanto for access to a huge batch of internal communications by Avaaz, in a move that the campaign group says could have grave repercussions for online activism and data privacy. Monsanto is seeking the release of all lobby documents ... where the firm or its herbicide ingredient glyphosate have been mentioned. Avaaz says this would include personal information about its employees, as well as the email addresses of more than four million signatories to petitions against Monsantos GM and glyphosate policies. A victory for Monsanto in todays hearing would cost the online advocacy group thousands of person-hours of work time, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to Avaazs lawyers. It could even raise the prospect of a migration out of online activism by campaigners concerned about corporate surveillance. Monsantos [request] demands all documents Avaaz employees have created, maintained, received, sent or copied, where these involve discussion about glyphosate, Monsanto, or the World Health Organizations International Agency for Research on Cancer, which found glyphosate to probably be carcinogenic. Monsanto filed its request shortly after a bitter EU regulatory battle ended with its license for glyphosate the core ingredient in Roundup being extended by just five years, rather than the 15 years originally sought.
Note: Read more on Avaaz and the power of online activism. Major lawsuits are beginning to unfold over Monsanto's lies to regulators and the public on the dangers of its products, most notably Roundup. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and health.