Since the 1990s, Royal Dutch Shell has been at war with a family who registered a gripe website, royaldutchshellplc.com. Further hostilities took place today.

At the worst possible time, with UK broadband and web hosting company Pipex up for sale, David Hasselhoff, the celebrity fronting its TV advertising campaign is on YouTube drunk, the ISP has been hit by a deluge of complaints by disgruntled clients and is embroiled in a dispute over its claimed intellectual property likely to create more uncertainty and negative publicity.