“Skanks” ruling sets privacy and libel borders for bloggers
A New York court has ordered Google to reveal the identity of an anonymous blogger accused of libeling a former model on his “Skanks of NYC” blog. The ruling sets a significant precedent for the often-blurred line between fact and opinion on blogs.
Liskula Cohen asked Google to tell her who wrote the blog (hosted on Blogger) after seeing a post with unflattering pictures of her and the caption, “I would have to say that first place award for ‘Skankiest in NYC’ would have to go to Liskula Gentile Cohen.” Google refused, citing its policy of only revealing personal details upon a court order.
The writer’s lawyer argued that there was no question of libel as blogs are merely a way of conveying personal opinion (“including invective and ranting”) rather than statements of facts. That argument was rejected by the judge, who ordered Google to hand over all information they had available, which includes IP addresses linked to the posts and the e-mail address used to set-up the account.
Cohen’s lawyers are now attempting to link these details to an individual so that they can begin a libel action. They haven’t revealed a name yet but suspect it is an acquaintance of Cohen.
The problem with this case is that it’s easy to judge it on the circumstances rather than the principle. It’s a natural response to conclude that people shouldn’t be allowed to hide away like weasels while making pathetic jibes that cross the line into libel.
But if, as a hypothetical example, a former employee of a national fast food chain used an anonymous blog to make accusations about safety violations, many people would be outraged if a court forced an ISP to name the writer.
In principle, I’d prefer the law to hold that an ISP only has to reveal a writer’s identity once they have been conclusively proven to have committed an offense. The problem with that is that you’d risk the bizarre situation of a trial involving a mystery defendant.
Related Posts:
August 19th, 2009
if someone called me a skank I would take it as a compliment. It would certainly take the wind out of that asshole bloggers comments.
BTW, asshole is a compliment too.
August 19th, 2009
I wonder if this person actually knows the model. That would be pretty awkward for them.