In what appears to be the latest trend in the law, especially involving the net and individual rights, a NY Supreme Court judge ordered google to turn over the name of an anonymous blogger who had defamed a model in a blog:
In a case with potentially far-reaching repercussions, Liskula Cohen sought the identity of the blogger who maligned her on the Skanks in NYC blog so that she could sue him or her for defamation.
A Manhattan supreme court judge ruled that she was entitled to the information and ordered Google, which ran the offending blog, to turn it over.
Ms Cohen, a tall, Canadian blonde who has modelled for Giorgio Armani and Versace, went to court after reading the wounding anonymous comments on Google’s Blogger.com.
This case will hopefully put the fear of the law behind a lot of anonymous bloggers and websites who hide behind their masks and feel they have carte blanche to defame people and engage in acts of cyberbullying. These wankers forget that the First Amendment does not give them the right to defame people and to make untrue statements about people so as to impugn or malign their reputation.
In the decision, the Judge noted:
“The thrust of the blog is that [Cohen] is a sexually promiscuous woman,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Joan Madden wrote in her decision. That included references to Cohen as “whoring” and “ready to engage in oral sexual activity.”
As such, the international cover girl is entitled to insist in a defamation lawsuit that the blogger’s statements are false and damaging — and to get from Google the blogger’s name she needs in order to do so, the judge ruled.
Read the whole thing here.