A Canadian model has won a landmark case in a New York court after Google was forced to disclose the online identity of a blogger who anonymously posted derogatory comments about the Vogue covergirl.
Justice Joan Madden of the New York State Supreme Court ordered the Web giant on Monday to hand over identifying information about the person who created the blog a year ago using Google’s Blogger.com program.
The ruling came after Liskula Cohen, 36, filed suit in a bid to unmask the identity of her tormentor, who posted suggestive photographs of Cohen on the blog and described her as a “ho” and a “psychotic, lying, whoring ... skank.”
The blog was removed in March.
But Cohen, who has appeared on runways for top designers around the world and on the covers of numerous fashion magazines, was determined to pursue the case to learn the identity of the blogger.
“If somebody attacks somebody on the street you’re not going to let it go,” she told ABC’s Good Morning America in an exclusive interview on Wednesday. “If somebody attacks you personally you’re not going to let it go.
“Why should I just ignore it? I couldn’t find one reason to ignore it,” Cohen said. “So I didn’t.”
Steven Wagner, Cohen’s lawyer, said that following the court ruling, Google turned over the e-mail address and IP addresses from each time the blogger had logged on to the blog.
The e-mail address allowed Cohen to immediately figure out who the blogger was.
She told ABC she was relieved to discover that the woman who created the blog — whom she declined to identify — was not someone close to her.
“She’s an irrelevant person in my life,” Cohen said. “She’s just somebody that, whenever I would go out to a restaurant, to a party in New York City, she was just that girl that was always there.”
Cohen said she called the woman on the phone and told her: “I just want you to know that if I’ve ever done anything to you to actually deserve this then I’m really very sorry.
“I said: ‘I forgive you, it doesn’t matter any more,’” Cohen said.
Wagner said, however, that Cohen planned to pursue a defamation case against the woman.
He told ABC the case was “sending out a message that the Internet is no longer a safe harbor for defamatory language.”
“I don’t know if it’ll change the Internet,” he said. “It’ll change the way some people act on the Internet.”
Google said that while the firm does not tolerate “cyber bullying” it is also respectful of privacy.
“We sympathize with anyone who may be the victim of cyber bullying,” Andrew Pederson, a Google spokesman, said in an e-mail statement.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not