Liskula Cohen, a Canadian model, sued Google in court to reveal an identity of a blogger since that blogger called her a skank, a whore, and many other things on his/her blog. The court ruled in her favor. I think it’s wrong for a blogger to be so offensive in defaming someone else with or without public life in anyway, but I think the Internet should be anonymous. For an example, if a blogger is living in a suppressive country but wanting to blog about the corruptive conditions that occur in his/her country, and he/she should have no reason to fear in doing just that because the Internet provides that anonymous curtain. When the Internet stops being anonymous, it’s when bloggers cannot speak his/her mind anymore either for good or for bad.
I wonder even if Google wants to reveal the identity of a blogger to the model based on the court’s ruling, can they even do it since many bloggers created fake profile for their blog accounts and using public hotspot locations for Internet access (public IP addresses). If only a blogger hosts his/her own blog software on a paid web hosting account or a dedicated server, then the identity of a blogger can be revealed easier. This case is somewhat bringing back some memory of how Yahoo exposed a Chinese blogger Shi Tao who wrote things that were offensive to the Chinese government, and Shi Tao were arrested and sentenced for 10 years in prison. Though pale in comparison, this case allows the anonymity to be lifted, and the future will be full of ridiculous lawsuits over trivial Internet quarrels.
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