Since winning a case for a woman who demanded to know who was calling her a “first class skank” online, a Manhattan lawyer has been approached by numerous clients who want him to beat up their cyber-bullies. More and more, lawyers like Steven Wagner will push Google to reveal the names of their faceless web maligners.
A Manhattan judge ordered that Google give up the email address of the blogger who said mean things last summer about model Liskula Cohen. Once she had a name, Cohen could sue for defamation. She wasn’t the only one who wanted to know who was talking smack behind her back: an investor from Washington state wants Google to take down a website that was started by a competitor to spread lies about his business. It ended up costing him hundreds of millions of dollars, reported the NY Post. Another site blogged about a woman’s prostitutions career and heroin addiction—both fabricated—and she wants it eradicated from the web. "There's been a dramatic increase in these kinds of cases," said the lawyer who plans to represent her. "All of a sudden, people are saying, 'Hey, you can beat Google.'"
