Following court orders, Google revealed the name of an anonymous blogger who posted rants about model Liskula Cohen. Cohen supposedly "forced" Google to reveal the blogger's identity by suing the company. Google defends revealing the name as compliance with the letter and spirit of the law. Remember Yahoo in China? They had also claimed compliance with local law after revealing the identity of a Chinese blogger exercising freedom of speech which doesn't exist in China. The US, however, is Not China!
If Cohen was upset with the postings and the anonymous blogger refused to take them down, she had every right to ask Google to delete the postings or close the account. That's the right course of action. Revealing the identity without the consent of the blogger was a big mistake both of the courts and of Google. The US is not China.
We can protect the good name of our citizens by acting against libel without damaging the conditions that help foster a free speech society. When you can close the account and simply remove the postings from the Google servers it doesn't make sense to apply the law to reveal online identities every time someone makes a rant about something or someone.
For me, closing the account would have been the right thing to ask that Google do and the right thing for Google to do no matter what it was asked by the court to do!
http://www.thinkaloo.com
Monday, October 19, 2009
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