Google forced to reveal blogger’s identity

In a precedential move, a US court has ordered that Google reveal the identity of a 'slanderous' blogger.

The anonymous 'Skanks in NYC' blog, published a year ago on blogger.com, made malicious statements about model Liskula Cohen. Below is a sample:

“[she's] a psychotic, lying, whoring, still going to clubs at her age, skank.”

The blog has been removed but apparently there were five nasty and vindictive posts dedicated entirely to debasing Cohen's appearance, hygiene and sexual conduct.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported yesterday that Cohen was compelled to sue Google so that the person responsible for the blogs could be revealed.

In court, the blogger's lawyer argued that the blogs "serve as a modern-day forum for conveying personal opinions, including invective and ranting". But the Manhattan judge disagreed and ruled that the blogs were more than "trash talk".

Now that the US supreme court has ruled that Cohen is entitled to the information from Google, she is deliberating about whether to sue the blogger.

Google has assured the public that they:

“sympathise with anyone who may be the victim of cyber bullying ... take great care to respect privacy concerns and will only provide information about a user in response to a subpoena or other court order."

It's difficult to comment on the ruling without having seen the photo content and exactly what was written in the blogs but I do think that cyber-defamation laws eventually need to be introduced. I believe we all have a responsibility about the manner in which we contribute to the Internet and I don't think that extending our real-life laws to cyberland will curb our freedom of speech. I've seen many posts that completely disagree with me but I think defamation on the Internet needs to have legal ramifications. Opinion, of course, is different to slander. What do you think?