New York— A former Vogue front page Canadian model “Liskula Cohen,” has filed a suit against Google in order to expose the identity of an anonymous blogger who made offensive remarks made about her by calling her a “skank” and an “old hag” on a blog hosted by its Blogger Publishing service, according to the New York Daily News.
Cohen 36, who flashed on the covers of W and Australian Vogue magazines in the early ‘90s, demands to know the identity of an anonymous blogger who called her “our #1 skanky superstar” among other lovely nicknames.
The Vogue model, who has appeared for Giorgio Armani and Versace, has filed a suit in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, in New York seeking an order that would allow her to sue for defamation the anonymous contributor to a blog calling itself “Skanks in NYC”.
The alleged blog — Skanks in NYC, is purely devoted more or less to ridiculing photographs of Cohen, all of which were posted on a single day: August 21, 2008. But Cohen has taken enough offense to pursue legal action against Google in a Manhattan court, demanding that the Internet giant expose the “Skanks” blogger’s details.
“I cannot begin to imagine why someone would post these things then hide behind a screen name. I guess we are going to have to find out,” The New York Daily News quoted her lawyer, Steven Wagner, as saying. As part of the defamation suit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, the blonde beauty is seeking a court order compelling Google and its Blogger.com subsidiary to identify the person who led the vicious Internet assault against her.
According to her filing in the court, the bloggers have “posted entries, including photographs, captions to the photographs and commentary solely about Cohen that describe her as a ‘skank’ and a ‘ho’”.
The post by the blogger titled “Anonymous” also states in one entry: “She is a psychotic, lying, whoring…skank”. The blogger further added: “Yeah she may have been hot 10 years ago, but is it really attractive to watch this old hag straddle dudes in a nightclub or lounge? Desperation seeps from her soul, if she even has one.”
Cohen, a Canadian who has made a flash on the front covers of Australian Vogue and worked for Versace and Armani, said her picture as a “promiscuous woman who is filthy, disgusting, foul and a whore” had damaged her “reputation and desirability for endorsing products”.
They were also hurtful and “flatly untrue,” she said in her affidavit.
Cohen’s lawyer, Wagner admitted that it will not be easy to find out the identity of the blogger, as New York courts have usually not forced bloggers to reveal themselves.
“We think we have a case,” Wagner told The New York Daily News. “This is libelous, it is defamatory and you should not just get away with this.”
Google has declined to comment about the complaint.
Blogger.com’s content policy prohibits users from publishing anything that “promotes hate toward groups based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, and sexual orientation/gender identity.”
Last year, Cohen made the headlines after she was stabbed in the face with a broken glass after getting into an argument with a man at a New York nightclub.
“I’m tall, I’m blond, I’ve been modeling for many years, and people get jealous,” Cohen told the Daily News. “If I had to deal with everyone who is jealous, I would not have time to do anything else.”
In the meantime, the search terms “Liskula Cohen” and “Skanks in NYC” dramatically rose to the top of (ironically) Google Trends, earning “fervent” ratings.
Well, this is not the first time Google is facing a lawsuit, it has been sued by an individual over matters involving privacy. Last April, a Pittsburgh couple filed a lawsuit alleging that the Internet Company’s “Street View” mapping feature violated their privacy. Google sought the dismissal of the suit.