No, the Net is not anonymous

Her name is Rosemary Port. She's a remarkably attractive, 29-year-old student at the Fashion Institute of Technology, a SUNY school in New York City.

She doesn't have anything nice to say.

According to the New York Daily News, a 37-year-old model named Liskula Cohen allegedly had not-so-nice things to say about Port to a third party (an ex-boyfriend). Port, presumably angered by this disrespect, started an anonymous blog and called Cohen a bunch of nasty names.

Port is now famous, called the "'Skank' Blogger" in the numerous news reports about her case. You see, Liskula Cohen decided, when she found out about the blog, that nobody has the right to call her a "skank," a "ho," an "old hag" and a "psychotic, lying whore" with impunity, the anonymity of the Internet be damned. Cohen sued Google, which owns the blog site Rosemary Port used to post her hateful rants. A Manhattan Supreme Court judge ordered Google to reveal Port's identity so that Cohen could pursue Port for defamation. Google complied, and Port is now a Web celebrity – regardless of whether she wants to be.

The case is notable not because somebody started an anonymous blog to trash somebody else, but because of the legal action that followed. Plenty of people approach the Internet as the sort of free-for-all that it was during its earliest years. This attitude is still common, despite the evolving way those in legal power have come to see, and to judge, online activity. We've discussed some of these in Technocracy, including the Pirate Bay case.

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Something about technology and especially the World Wide Web lulls people into a false sense of entitlement, a legal complacency, that leads them into trouble even when they lack criminal intent. There are those, for example, who believe that because a picture or even a written article is on the Internet, it can be freely copied and used for other private and even commercial interests, regardless of copyright. Some who do this hide behind the all-purpose shield of "fair use," but "fair use" is not the aegis they believe it to be. Copyright law still applies to the Internet. More importantly, "libel" and "defamation" are not just words, even in the ether of the Web's network-of-networks.

It has long been the case, for example, that you cannot say simply anything you want about another person online. The Internet is a virtual reality, but it is a public venue nonetheless. Writing something on the Internet is the equivalent of shouting something in an infinitely large public square. You can say what you want as long as you do not engage in libel or defamation (and as long as you do not incite others to commit crime). You can even say some pretty nasty things about a "public figure," somebody who is famous, that you couldn't say about your neighbor or somebody who isn't famous. Whether Ms. Cohen is a public figure may figure into any legal action that might take place in her defamation case, should she choose to pursue it.

Even a public figure, however, is not fair game for false statements that are genuinely harmful to his or her reputation. I am a public figure, and some people online have had some pretty nasty, untrue things to say about me – but it isn't illegal not to like someone. It isn't even illegal to express an unjustifiably negative opinion about that public figure (as my lawyer informs me). Yet those same people could not post that I was, say, a kleptomaniac, a child molester, or an arsonist, because that would be ruinous to my reputation. Such claims are false and therefore constitute libel, slander, or defamation. These legal protections mean nothing if those accused cannot face their accusers, which of course raises the problem that Ms. Cohen raised in her suit against Google.

How does someone, even a public figure, pursue legal action against his or her online critics, if those critics are cowards who post their vitriol and hatred anonymously? Well, as we've seen, that public figure goes after the service provider or the website owner.

Thanks to The Communications Decency Act, Internet law (such as it is, and if we can truly use that terminology) is generally interpreted to shield website owners from liability for third-party conduct. This means that Ms. Cohen can't sue Google for owning the blog in which Ms. Port allegedly defamed her. It also means, again generally, that the owner of an online discussion forum can't be held liable if a member of that forum makes death threats against someone, or similarly libels another party.

Where the gray area comes into play is in Ms. Port's case. Google was sued and forced to reveal her identity because Ms. Cohen was deemed to have the legal right to confront her accuser. Ms. Port turned around and sued Google, or at least as of this writing plans to sue Google, because she claims she had a legally enforceable expectation of anonymity. In other words, she claims she has the legal right to defame anonymously anyone she chooses, as long as she can throw her rocks from within the comfortable cloak of anonymity the Internet provides.

The Internet, however, is not nearly as anonymous as many think it to be. Your IP address can be traced. Your service provider could be compelled to give up your registration details. Your search engine conceivably could be forced to turn over the details of your Web searches – the cumulative information provided by which just might point to your identity, especially if you've ever done a "vanity search" for your own name or location. Your library just might be ordered to turn over sign-up details for public computer use, in the case of a criminal investigation ... and so on.

Free speech is not a license to commit libel. You are not anonymous on the Internet, and you will be held accountable for what you say.