Anonymous Blogger -- Outed By the Courts & Google...

This is a follow-up to an earlier post on anonymous blogging and whether one can be truly anonymous when they blog, particularly if they are writing content that offends someone and they decide to take legal action. You can read that post here.

The anonymous blogger is Rosemary Port, a 29-year-old fashion student from New York, and she is so unhappy about Google giving up her identity and breaching her right to privacy that she is allegedly going to sue Google for USD 15 million.

Port's lawyer, Salvatore Strazzullo, seems to think that the case has enough legs to get all the way to the US Supreme Court. The arguments that Strazzullo are going to run with revolve around the fact that Google has "breached its fiduciary duty to protect her [Port] expectation of anonymity".

However, the other likely angles include that Cohen had a hand in publishing the sexually provocative pictures of herself and that the defamation action was nothing more than an attempt drum up some publicity for herself and defame Port into the bargain. Furthermore, Cohen has described herself as a "serial monogamist". Interesting choice of words to accompany the pictures posted of her.

This case would seem to have some ways to go.

A long story short, Port created a blog called "Skanks in NYC" and it seems that the only 'skank' Port focused on was Liskula Cohen. Cohen was offended and felt she had been defamed but was unable to proceed with any claim against the person doing the defaming because the blog was anonymous. Jumping forward, Cohen sues Google to get the identity of the anonymous blogger, the court decides that Google must hand over the identity, Google hands over the identity, and Port is outed.

Strangely enough, Cohen has 'forgiven' Port and pretty much brushed the matter off as Port being "an irrelevant person in my life". It would seem she knew Port, but obviously they were far from being friends. Although, they seem to have known each other well-enough that Cohen was comfortable allegedly trashing Port to Port's ex-boyfriend. Ahhhhh, the lives of models and fashion students.

It will be interesting to see if all the talk of taking this case all the way to the US Supreme Court comes to fruition.

Google Maps Street View

Got any privacy concerns? Well, if you do then you will need to get 'em sorted out as Google is coming to get ya through its Google Maps "Street View" service! Google does not see any privacy concerns here as the vehicles that take these happy snappies are very easily identified in the sense that they are decked out in the Google colours with a roof mounted camera!

Besides, and as Google claims, any content that people find invades their privacy or is inappropriate they can ask that Google take it down or remove it from the site. However, as fair as this might sound on face value, even an inexperienced Internet user will be able to tell you that once the image is uploaded the damage is already done! Indonesians should be acutely aware of this with the latest attempts of the Indonesian government to prevent the spread of Geert Wilders film into Indonesia.

Yet, there are other issues aside from the fact that Google is hiding behind the claim that it is only filming in public places and the very definition of a public place is that it is sans privacy. The question is where does the public domain start and the private domain end.

Can Google photograph someone in their car in their driveway or the parking lot of a shopping centre...perhaps in common and civil law jurisdictions lawyers with expertise in trespass are about to get plenty of work or so it would seem? What about where people who need to be protected from having their identities released, particularly a whistle blower or someone else in a witness protection program. An extreme and perhaps one of those rare to never happenings but even with the odds against it there is still that slim chance...then what? Google takes the image down and apologizes? Damage done! Google is being sued already for alleged invasions of privacy through the use of this service -- let's see how that plays out and then perhaps more definitive statements might be made on the privacy concerns.

In any event the rapid spread of mobile phone technology with camera and video capabilities should have educated people that they will need to be more vigilant with their conduct in both public and private places. This technology means that there is a budding Scorsese in all of us just waiting for that 15 minutes of grainy 3gp fame!