Rosemary Port (pictured left) is a writer that had a blog called “Skanks in NYC.” The blog apparently defamed a model by the name of Liskula Cohen. Cohen sued Google, who was forced by a judge to reveal the Port’s identity. Port was anonymously blogging under a Google Blogger account.
Now that Port’s identity is out in the open, she is mad and is not going to take it. This is why she has informed the media that she plans to sue Google for $15 million for allowing invasion of privacy. Port is a 27 year old studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.
She is specifically suing Google for “breaching its fiduciary duty to protect her expectation of anonymity.” Given that Google probably has a team of lawyers on retainer, Port may have a hard time seeing any money coming out of Google but at least she is getting more publicity out of the whole situation.
A 29 year old girl by the name of Rosemary Port (pictured left) was the author of a blog called Skanks in NYC. The blog heavily criticized model Liskula Cohen (pictured right). On the blog, Cohen was called an “old hag” and other defamatory comments. As a result, Cohen decided to send an injunction to Google subsidiary Blogger.com to reveal the identity of the anonymous blog writer.
Cohen won the injunction last week. Cohen decided to tell her lawyer Steven Wagner to drop a $3 million lawsuit against Port because she was willing to let by-gones be by-gones. “This is about forgiveness,” Cohen said. “It adds nothing to my life to hurt hers. I wish her happiness.”
Port is upset at Google for revealing her identity and felt that her privacy has been tampered with. Port is also scared that her name is public. The reason why Port wrote defamatory comments against Cohen is because Cohen supposedly talked negatively about Port’s boyfriend Daniel Dimin.
Today a judge ruled in favor of Cohen that she has the right to know who the anonymous blogger was for a website called “Skanks in NYC.”
Cohen’s argument was that she was defamed on the Skanks in NYC blog and that she had the right to know who called her an “old hag.” Judge Joan Madden wrote that “the thrust of the blog is that [Cohen] is a sexually promiscuous woman.” Google will now be forced to reveal the identity unless an appeal is made.
Now more than ever, employers and professionals are Googling the names of the people that they often associate with. I’ve heard cases where managers of companies would Google and even check Facebook profile pictures of those that they are about to hire. Somehow that will affect their decision about the person’s credibility too.
This is what makes the case of Liskula Cohen very interesting. There is a blog called Skanks in NYC that demeans pictures of people and uses their full names. All of the pictures on Skanks in NYC of Liskula Cohen are personal pictures. Cohen will has recently appeared on the cover of Vogue.
Since Skanks in NYC is hosted on blogspot.com (the domain owned by Google’s Blogger subsidiary) with an anonymous name, it makes sueing that individual or group people even harder. This means Cohen would have to go directly to the owner of the website, Google Inc.
“Essentially, Cohen has to demonstrate defamation twice: once to show that she has a sufficient case that the identity of the blogger should be unmasked. At that point, the case could proceed against the actual author of the blog, at which point the defamation would have to be demonstrated all over again,” wrote John Timmer of Ars Technica regarding the case. “None of this will be easy, as US courts generally set a high standard for defamation of public figures, and Cohen has made a name for herself in ways that go beyond modeling by getting hit in the face with a vodka bottle at a Manhattan club.”
This truly will be an interesting case. It is very similar to the city of Memphis pushing to find out who the owner of MPD Enforcer 2.0 is.
