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Model Drops Lawsuit After Outing Anonymous Blogger
JumperCable writes "The NY Daily News is reporting that model Liskula Cohen, who was suing the 'Skanks of NYC' blogger for defamation, is dropping the lawsuit now that she has outed the anonymous blogger, who is a Fashion Institute of Technology student named Rosemary Port. This brings up the question of potential abuse of the legal system to 'out' anonymous authors even if there is no intention actually to pursue a case against an anonymous individual. Also, according to the article, the outed blogger intends to sue Google for $15 million because it 'breached its fiduciary duty to protect her expectation of anonymity.' Do Web hosting services even have a fiduciary duty to protect their clients, or is this all legal bluff and bluster?" Should such anonymity-busting court rulings include a provision for penalties if the plaintiff does not follow through with legal action after outing their target?
However, this release was due to a court order.
Right. The person who should be sued here isn't Google, who had no choice, but Liskula Cohen, who forced them to release the information.
I put the 't' in electrical engineering.
From the Blogger.com terms of service. Seems pretty cut and dried to me.
to protect the first amendment, but suing companies for not more zealously protecting anonymity from idiot rulings is better than no protection at all. so let this retarded catfight proceed in the only way it can:
1. one dumb biatch gets a bucketload of cash from google
2. the other dumb biatch gets a career boost fom the streisand effect
as if getting on the front page of newspapers is bad for your career, no matter how lascivious. didn't paris hilton's "career" get started when video of her surfaced giving some trust fund ahole a hummer? and didja see her ass(ets)?
http://internetdefamationblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/liskulacohen.jpg
skank?
skankalicious!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Blogger's privacy policy points to the general Google one, which says (snipped to the relevant stuff):
Google only shares personal information with other companies or individuals outside of Google in the following limited circumstances:
From the Blogger.com terms of service from January 2005.
From the Blogger.com terms of service from January 2006.
From the Blogger.com terms of service from January 2007.
From the Blogger.com terms of service from January 2008.
Actually, FIT is pretty well known (and well regarded) in the creative arts world - fashion design, etc. Things mostly unfamiliar with the /. crowd.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That's a nice bit of moralizing there, but "fiduciary duty" is a legal term of art and has a very specific meaning. It has nothing to do with fostering the trust of your clients. It's a specific relationship that's entered into when a professional has a certain kind of relationship with a client, or when a trustee/trustor relationship exists. A lawyer has a fiduciary duty to a client, because the client pays a retainer, which is held in a trust account until the lawyer does some actual work to earn the money, at which point it's transferred to the lawyer's account. This is just one example of course. The recognition of a fiduciary duty is a way of ensuring that professionals with specific expert knowledge, and access to the client's funds, don't take advantage of that position and simply fleece the client.
The kind of trust you're talking about is, for most corporations, essentially marketing, as your relationship with that corporation involves transactions of money for goods or services, where the exchange is completed upon payment. In the case of Blogger, it's even more extreme, since you aren't actually paying to use the service, which means that Blogger/Google owes you nothing. One could argue that being exposed to advertizing is consideration for services (and I would argue that myself), but even then, Blogger/Google is only obligated to give you what they promised in the contract. Clearly there's value in owning up to the terms of your contract, but it doesn't attach a fiduciary duty to either party.
And lastly, no contract or duty can force a party to break the law. Once the court ordered Google to turn over the information, any agreement they had with the Blogger to protect her privacy is dust in the wind. You can't contract to break the law.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
There are quite a few positions where anonymous activity is protected, but this issue involving Google is bound to test some of the all encompassing Eulas for everything under the sun. Many reporters and authors, including but not limited to Mystery Diners, Mystery Shoppers, on and on, rely on pen names, without which their value would be severely damaged. This partially goes to freedom of the press in the US, even Benjamin Franklin relied on "Poor Richard" as his pen name to protect his life from being endangered during political unrest during the formation of the US. At least in the US, the constitution does support freedom of the press, and any ULA can certainly not take precidence against constitutional law.
On this subject, I must be anonymous, just seems right!
Anonymous Superhero
As soon as, no. You seem to be forfeiting it when someone presents the defamation to a judge and the judge determines that disclosing your identity is prudent to pursuing justice. This means that the judge actually saw the potential of defamation if not actual defamation and determined it was beyond hurt feelings to some extent.
In this model case however, the situation had some preconditions to it. The model thought the anonymous person was someone specific and had intent to sue that person. When it was determined to be just some fashion student with no money, the model stopped pursuing it because enough damage had already been done and it wouldn't be likely to recover any of the expenses. The student is going to have a hard time finding a job in the chosen field after it was found he was behind these actions. His future employers will see him as a liability. Losing a lawsuit for defimation would probaby be over board because it would pretty much lock him out of the field for any job with a potential of paying her back.
I think the model did the right thing here. Going ahead with the lawsuit and getting a 192 million dollar settlement on a student would have spiraled her career into serving coffee at RIAA executive functions. Had it been who she thought it was, she probably would have taken it further. But for now, she got as much justice as she thinks is appropriate. What she thinks is extremely important here because it was her who was defamed. She would set the terms to be made whole again in a court and unless they were ridiculous, the court would likely follow them.
"my use of the term "fiduciary duty" is still 100% fine in this situation, since the use of term is not beholden to a purely legalistic interpretation."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary
TBH, I had to look the word up. Was looking for an argument, really. But, it seems that you are right, especially considering the fact that ./ is an international community. Having expanded my understanding of the English language, I gotta give you points for making a good point.
Of course, that doesn't preclude any skanky ho comments! ;^)
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
But one would think the "court" might want some recourse for being played like that. Or get a reputation for being credulous fools.
Which is why we have "contempt of court" proceedings, perhaps...?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Yes, I believe she did.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/08/19/1342248
From the Summary:
The unidentified creator of the blog was represented in court by an attorney, Anne Salisbury
The first amendment doesn't protect you against companies but against the state. If her expectation of anonymity comes from the first amendment then she should be suing the state rather than Google. But anyway, that's completely off topic: my point was simply that she's spouting legal terms without knowing what they mean.
Barratry refers to repeated harassment via the legal system. It does not apply in this case.
What Ms. Cohen might legitimately be accused of is abuse of process, which does not require repetition to be punishable.
Had the NYT posted this stuff, we wouldn't be questioning the model's right to sue for defamation.
Had the NYT posted this stuff, they would have written it in such a way that claims of defamation are impossible.
All you have to do are insert some weasel words:
My opinion, people say, I've heard, it's been said, she's been described as, etc etc etc.
"I think Liskula Cohen is a skank and a ho" = free speech.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Maybe you should have read the links before commenting. The cited clauses (4 and 6) are:
So, while the cases are not exactly the same, my reading of this definition of what is sufficient to claim harassment is pretty broad (as was stated) and might be said to fit. So actually, its so relevant, that I wouldn't be shocked if the original suit cited this case directly.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
All you have to do are insert some weasel words
Can we please stop repeating this? Adding "I think" to a statement of fact does not magically change the nature of the statement. Saying "I think Mr. Smith sells cocaine to school children" does not make you any less liable to a defamation lawsuit than saying "Mr. Smith sells cocaine to school children."
This is the same lame defense that the telecoms used.
Except that it isn't.
Google received a very open and very legal request from the courts, and Google complied with the request. The telecoms were asked under the table to comply with an illegal request, and they complied.
Please note that I am not saying anything about whether Google should or should not have complied with the request, but the two situations are completely different, as the telecoms broke the law while Google did not.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
while you might be right, the general idea that you can turn defaming speech into protected speech is sound.
For example:
A police official familiar with the case who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the department is considering filing charges against Mr. Smith for selling cocaine to school children..