‘Skanks in NYC’ Rosemary Port’s $15 million lawsuit against Google is doomed

The end of the Skanks? (Image from Gothamist)

Rosemary Port, the outed ‘Skanks in NYC’ blogger, said this week that she plans to sue the heck out of Google for turning her identity over to Liskula Cohen, the model she allegedly — and anonymously — defamed. For background, see prior posts here and here.

When Port and her attorney told the Daily News that they planned to sue Google for $15 million for violating Port’s 1st Amendment rights, all we media types were like, ‘OMG, OMG, Skanks blogger is going to sue Google for $15 million.’ It makes great copy after all.

But I spoke with privacy expert Dan Solove, and he said, ‘Hold up.’ From my interview with Solove at Above The Law:

ME: So what do you think of Rosemary Port’s threatened lawsuit against Google?

SOLOVE: It’s a really interesting case. But if Google was complying with a court order, I don’t what the cause of action would be.

ME: So that’s a no-go…

SOLOVE: The case does raise interesting issues about privacy and anonymity online though…

via Talking about Skanks With Dan Solove (Or: How To Become THE Legal Expert On Privacy in Less Than 10 Years) – Above the Law.

So then we talked about interesting issues around online anonymity. Port’s actual beef should be with Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Joan Madden, who ordered Google to turn the information over. Solove said the courts should be exercising a higher standard in disclosing the identities of anonymous online critics.

Solove writes about that here at Concurring Opinions.

His colleague on the same blog, Kaimipono Wenger, disagrees with him here. Skanks should be disinfected, writes Wenger.

I write more about Solove here at Above The Law.

And with that, I hope not to use the words, “skank,” “skanks,” or “skanky” again for many, many weeks.