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Model Drops Lawsuit After Outing Anonymous Blogger

Posted by kdawson on from the you-can-pull-your-pants-up-now dept.

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?

2 of 476 comments (clear)

  1. Her anonymity? by Tukz · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I didn't read the article, only the summery, so I MAY have missed some points.

    She is suing google, because google revealed her identity. Google can only do this with information that is public available in the first, or from within there own services, where you agree to throwing anonymity down the drain.

    Welcome to the internet. You got no RIGHT to being anonymous.
    In fact, some people go through great length to archive pseudo-anonymity.

    Get it straight. You are NOT anonymous on the internet.
    You cannot sue a indexing site for revealing already public information. Not like Google made a banner "Look here! Anonymous' bloggers name. Click!"

    You can join a site, pay some money for being anonymous on that community, but don't think you are truly anonymous. They get your data. And stuff DOES get leaked, accidental or otherwise, some times. You can file a civil law suit against that company, for not protecting your paid for service. Though I doubt you'll win, but have fun!

    tl;dr: You're not anonymous on the internet.

    --
    - Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
  2. not very anonymous by rs232 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Obviously the blogger wasn't very anonymous if the abusee could so easily find out her real identity. And if you are going to abuse someone else online than at least have the gumption of using someone elses account, preferably on their home computer - that way they'll get the blame ...
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