Interesting piece in the Globe following a recent decision out of New York where a Canadian fashion model filed a claim against a blogger. The article points out that before "she could launch a defamation suit, she had to know who the blogger was. The court ordered Google, which manages the blog's publishing platform, to produce the information."
Anonymity and the web is a subject that yields strong and divided opinions often centered around "privacy".
However, the cloak of online anonymity seems to be coming down. This may result in more online accountability and responsibility. I find that these web brawls (and there are many) where people "drop the gloves" on each other to be quite bizarre. Often one anonymous "poster" is going at it with another anonymous "poster" and the discussion degenerates into a schoolyard verbal joust where they end up saying things that, but for the anonymity, would never be said or written. Maybe, these recent cases will stem some of this behaviour.
UPDATE: There is a post over at Slaw.ca that takes up the issue of online anonymity and the case that is discussed above.
