Technically Incorrect

Last week, a judge ordered Google to reveal the name of a blogger who may have defamed Vogue model Liskula Cohen. Now Rosemary Port, whose "Skanks in NYC" blog suggested Cohen was a "skank" and a "ho" among other potentially negative descriptions, is now turning a little of her "frank in NYC" wrath on Google.

You may be moved a little by Port's logic. Firstly, she told the New York Daily News that it was Cohen who caused all the fuss: "Before her suit, there were probably two hits on my Web site: One from me looking at it, and one from her looking at it (...) That was before it became a spectacle. I feel my right to privacy has been violated."

It is an interesting argument, one that perhaps suggests a future in the law, should a fashion career not satisfy.

And it seems that Port intends to test the boundaries of the law by attempting to sue Google. The 29-year-old student at the Fashion Institute of Technology told the Daily News that she will launch a $15 million suit against the entirely non-skanky company from the Left Coast (the blog was hosted on Google's Blogger).

Oh, please think carefully before you do, Madam.

(Credit: Cc Foxtongue/Flickr)

"When I was being defended by attorneys for Google, I thought my right to privacy was being protected," she told the News.

However, once the judge made her order, things changed. "I would think that a multibillion dollar conglomerate would protect the rights of all its users," said Port. Her attorney, Salvatore Strazzullo, told the Daily News that Google "breached its fiduciary duty to protect her expectation of anonymity."

Strazzullo will invoke the Founding Fathers in his argument, he said. And it is an interesting argument, one that perhaps extends beyond the blogs Google hosts to every area of personal information that the company holds. What should anyone who uses Google's services reasonably expect from the company in terms of privacy?

It will be more than a little pulsating to see where the courts might bang their gavels on this issue. But perhaps the saddest part of this strange episode is the reason why Port and Cohen allegedly fell out. According to the Daily News, Cohen said some not-so-nice things about Port to her ex-boyfriend. Oh, ladies. Is it really worth getting all this publicity, all this darned fame, over something that might have started as a little tittle-tattle?

I know that some people have pleasures that are not entirely innocent.

They go to sites such as What Would Tyler Durden Do? or Dlisted to read the occasionally besmirching remark aimed at those more famous, wealthy, and beautiful than themselves.

Sometimes, the bloggers behind these bastions of moral sure-footedness prefer to remain anonymous. However, a court ruling on Monday in New York might change that.

Liskula Cohen, a Vogue cover model, won an interesting case against the nameless blogger behind the erudite site Skanks in NYC.

Well, perhaps not.

(Credit: CC Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com/Flickr)

Judge Joan Madden ruled that Cohen is entitled to know the identity of the blogger as phrases such as "psychotic, lying, whoring...skank" might possibly be defamatory.

Initially, Cohen sued in January, asking the court to order Google, which was host to the site on Blogger, to reveal its author's identity.

In this proceeding, the judge declared that Google must inform the blogger that he or she should probably get a lawyer, as there is a risk of unmasking.

The blogger's lawyer claimed that the views expressed were "hyperbole" and that blogs "have evolved as the modern-day soapbox for personal opinions."

The lawyer also offered the view that blogs have "mere venting purposes, affording the less outspoken a protected forum for voicing gripes, leveling invective, and ranting about anything at all."

I wasn't entirely aware of that.

And the judge seems to have looked somewhat askance at these arguments. Especially, it seems, when she saw that the hyperbolic comments were placed near somewhat-provocative pictures of the model.

Judge Madden declared that placing such epithets as "ho" and "skank" next to these images might create "a negative implication of sexual promiscuity."

It is not for me to say why anyone would wish to create a blog called Skanks in NYC (the blog was taken down in March).

However, it will be interesting to see, as this lawsuit progresses, just what implications it might create for those who choose to blog anonymously and call people rather rude things.

Courtney Love is in a hole.

It appears that her temper, which occasionally flares wider than her nostrils, seems to have attracted a libel suit--the first libel suit, as far as I am aware, to have been engendered by Twitter tweets.

The person who believes she has been besmirched beyond all reasonable social networking is Dawn Simorangkir, Ms. Love's former fashion designer.

Some might say that Ms. Love's style is less a feast for the eyes and slightly more an evening meal for a friendly pet. But she appears, according to the court documents, to have had a falling-out with Ms. Simorangkir over, oh, you'll never guess, money. Which led to a barrage of rather uncharitable socially networked comments.

According to the complaint, Ms. Love spewed forth "an obsessive and delusional crusade" on Twitter, as well as tossing barbed words on MySpace and other Web sites.

I know you're rapt to know what kind melodies she is said to have emitted on Twitter. Well, the phrase "nasty, lying, hosebag thief" seems to have been tweeted. As well as a suggestion that the designer would be "hunted til your (sic) dead."

This is someone dressed as Courtney Love at a Halloween party. I thought she did rather well.

(Credit: CC Attercop 311)

While these seem like the starting point for some interesting rhyming couplets, they allegedly come across as personally scarring and business-affecting to Ms. Simorangkir.

You'll perhaps be aware that Ms. Love has enjoyed one or two scrapes with the law in the past. Once, she appears to have lived in lock-down drug rehabilitation. So perhaps it is unfortunate that she is said to have tweeted that her former designer has a "history of dealing cocaine."

Ms. Simorangkir and her lawyers, in an interesting counterpunch, indicate that some of the defendant action's might themselves be put down to suspicious substances. They muse as to whether "drug-induced psychosis" might have inspired some of Ms. Love's more venomous tweets.

This is all so sad. We all need to have good relations with our designers. What a difficult world it would be if others were now encouraged to tweet their own designer displeasure.

Will bankers now tweet dirty words against Brooks Brothers for making their employment obvious in bars? Will advertising executives tweet that Prada makes them look fat? And where will this leave relations between Valley executives and Banana Republic?

I see a slippery slope. One that neither high heels nor tight jodhpurs can possibly navigate.

J.P. Weichel claims he was "venting." But his alleged comments in Craigslist's Rants and Raves section might now lead him to a room where the vents let in a chilling draft.

Colorado prosecutors have decided to bring a case of criminal libel against Mr. Weichel.

(Credit: CC A Cloudman)

Apparently, the state has a law, dating from the 1880s, that says you can be prosecuted for "blackening the name of one who is dead." Or for exposing "the natural defects of one who is alive, and thereby to expose him to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule."

This leads one to wonder whether The Onion is published in Colorado--or whether anyone there has publicly expressed an opinion about the new Guns 'N Roses album.

Mr. Weichel is alleged to have said some fairly unflattering things about his ex and her lawyer. Court documents show posts that suggested she bartered sex for legal advice. And that child services had paid her a visit because of an injury to a child.

Today, my local Craigslist has Rants and Raves by people who hate their jobs, including one worried person who claims that his or her boss is continually manipulating his private parts. And I confess to being a little lost as to why Mr. Weichel might have chosen this particular medium rather than, say, a street corner or a local bar. But this quaint little Colorado law carries with it the prospect of 18 months of unpleasant confinement.

One does wonder why this particular case of alleged libel has taken on a criminal bent. Perhaps readers in Colorado might know a little more.