Etoy.com is the result of a group of European artists who created Swiss corporation whose purpose is to make art out of mimicking the corporate world. The site was set up in 1995, and on the site, users could buy stock, and stock certificates would be the art. I think this is also represented in the name of the website-Users use the website like an electronic toy, and the site is mocking corporate culture by calling what they do a toy.
One of the most interesting things I learned about Etoy.com is that it had a domain name battle with Etoys.com in 1999, which Etoy named Toywar. eToys tried to buy out the Etoy domain, but Etoy refused, so eToys sued for copyright infringement. Etoy created an online game in which members could attack eToys and earn points through real-world activities against eToys. Nearly 2,000 people participated in Toywar, and in January 2000, eToys dropped the lawsuit. Etoy takes credit for the $4.5 billion decrease in value of eToys's stock, making Toywar "the most expensive performance in art history".
I love how Etoy is mimicking, twisting, and mocking the corporate world and structures by which it operates. It even came out to the non-digital world with the eToys lawsuit. How Etoy used that real-life lawsuit to further involve users in a game, which then was taken off the website to chatrooms, forums, and other user-created websites is a really innovative use of New Media Art. Etoy shows me how with the internet, it is so easy to have the same power that large corporations have, no matter who I am behind the computer screen.
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