Bloggers Be Careful

Google forced to hand over blogger's identity

A court in New York has ruled that Google must hand over the details of a blogger who called a model a skank so that she can sue for defamation.

The blog, entitled 'Skanks in NYC', was hosted by Google subsidiary Blogger.com, and made comments about model Liskula Cohen. Justice Joan Madden ruled today that bloggers cannot remain anonymous and in a strongly worded judgment said that bloggers could not hide behind anonymity

"The thrust of the blog is that [Cohen] is a sexually promiscuous woman," Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Joan Madden wrote in her decision according to the New York Post.

Lawyers for the blogger argued that the comments were "non-actionable opinion and/or hyperbole" but the court rejected this in a ruling which could have huge ramifications for bloggers around the world.

"The floodgates would be opened if you tried to regulate these very broad, common insults and invective on the Internet," said Anne Salisbury, who represented the blogger.

"You can be really, really mean to people -- you just can't lie about a set of facts that are provable as lies, and that you knew or recklessly disregarded the truth of."

Cohen has said that she will now sue the person involved.

"I really hope it's not somebody I know," said Cohen.

"I'm a human being. I bleed. I have feelings. When I saw that blog, it was awful. All I can say for this person is, I really truly hope that they have more in their life than this."

The blog has now been removed. Google said that it would only hand over a user's details if a court ordered it to.

So………All you Bloggers beware….There evidently is no such thing as “free speech” anymore even in the “Blogsphere”!!!