BASC has been shocked to discover the owner of the Oxford Lead Symposium website is hiding their true identity behind a wall of secrecy.
The website is the public face of the symposium, yet has been registered anonymously more than 5,000 miles from Oxford in Arizona.
The group registered the website in the US on June 4 this year and have taken out a six-year lease on the domain name.
But crucial information about the site’s administration, registration and billing has been deliberately blocked from public view by an internet company which boasts of its ability to ‘mask’ identity details.
BASC believes that raises concerns about the true identity of those financing the Oxford Lead Symposium, which attempts to present an image of being ‘independent’ and ‘UK-focused’.
BASC chairman Alan Jarrett said: “If the symposium truly reflected independent scientific opinion, why does it refuse to reveal where the money for its website comes from or, even, who controls the website?
“There’s something very murky about this and it really needs explaining. When BASC owns a website, we are proud to put our name to it; we do it openly and we register it in the UK. Why do others see a problem doing that? What are they hiding?”