Court ruling looms
A Court might come close to removing bloggers' long
cherished anonymity.
Liskula Cohen, a Vogue cover model, won an interesting
case against the nameless blogger behind the Skanks site. Judge Joan Madden ruled that Cohen is entitled to know
the identity of the blogger as phrases such as "psychotic, lying,
whoring…skank" which might be a Nintendo defamatory.
Cohen sued in January, asking the court to order Google,
which was host to the site on Blogger, to reveal its author's identity. The judge declared that Google must inform the blogger
that he or she should probably get a lawyer, as there is a risk of unmasking.
The blogger's lawyer claimed that blogs "have
evolved as the modern-day soapbox for personal opinions". Apparently have
no other value and people don't believe them. But the Judge didn't think so. The comments were placed
near somewhat-provocative pictures of the model.
Judge Madden declared that placing such epithets as
"ho" and "skank" next to these images might create "a negative
implication of sexual promiscuity." The Blog was taken down in March.
