After three days, a billboard proclaiming "Don't Wal-Mart Bridgeport. Not here!" was removed from the site of a proposed Wal-Mart superstore near Tacoma, Washington. The Bridgeport Way Community Association paid for the message, because "people who travel this way have a right to know what's coming," said one association member. But the billboard owner, Clear Channel Outdoor (a division of radio and entertainment behemoth Clear Channel), took down the sign because advertisements that "alienate the property owner" are against company policy. Clear Channel did offer an alternative location, but the community association decided that placing the message anywhere else would be "less effective."

When it comes to stealthy PR campaigns, the biotech industry has spared no expense. For the past six years, the UK-based public interest group GM Watch has been tracking and documenting biotech's dirty tricks, learning that the PR web reaches further than just GM food. Encompassing a broad range of front groups, industry-funded researchers, and internet campaigns, GM Watch's new website LobbyWatch provides a who's-who of PR operators in Europe and the rest of the world. LobbyWatch's groundbreaking research details how the Living Marxism network is bringing a "Wise Use"-type environmentalism (read: industry friendly) to Europe, how the European Science and Environment Forum was founded with money from tobacco giant Philip Morris, and many other stories.