Bloggers sometimes hide behind their anonymity to make comments which they would be reluctant to make in the offline world. Anonymity is often thought to protect bloggers from being accountable for their comments. However, this thin veneer of protection can be removed either by application to court or, sometimes, by some simple cyber-sleuthing.
This week, former Vogue Australia cover girl, Liskula Cohen, successfully sued Google and the company was forced to reveal the identity of a blogger using Google’s Blogger service who had called her a “skank”, amongst other things.
Read more in The Age.
The NY Post has more about the Cohen v. Google case and the blogger’s reaction to be outed by court order to Google. [case name corrected]