Judge Rules Against Google, Online Anonymity

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — In a judgment that strikes a blow against free speech and online anonymity, a judge has ruled that a blogger defamed a fashion model by criticizing her looks.

A New York judge ruled logger Rosemary Port, who runs the website SkanksinNYC, defamed fashion model Liskula Cohen when she said she "may have been hot 10 years ago." Other language on the site included the contentions that Cohen has "desperation seeping from her soul, if she even has one" and how she's "a psychotic, lying, whoring, still going to clubs at her age, skank."

Cohen's modeling career was cut short last year when a doorman disfigured her face with a broken bottle.

But here's the problem: Port wrote the blog entry anonymously through Google's Blogger service. Cohen's lawyers sued to get Google to give up Port's name. Madden, of the Manhattan Supreme Court, ruled in Cohen's favor and forced Google to give up Port's name.

"I'm shocked that my right to privacy has been tampered with," Port said.

After Cohen exposed Port's identity, though, she dropped the suit, claiming that it would add nothing to her life to hurt Port's.

"I wish her happiness," Cohen said. "This is about forgiveness."

Pundits and analysts aren't so sure. John Del Signore of the influential New York blog Gothamist suggested that Port's lowly station as a telemarketer and waitress may have caused Cohen to back off because she couldn't win any money.

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