WASHINGTON (AFP) — A Canadian model has won a landmark case in a New York court after Google was forced to disclose the online identity of a blogger who anonymously posted derogatory comments about the Vogue covergirl.

Photo: AFP

Justice Joan Madden of the New York State Supreme Court ordered the Web giant on Monday 17 August to hand over identifying information about the person who created the blog a year ago using Google's Blogger.com program.

The ruling came after Liskula Cohen, 36, filed suit in a bid to unmask the identify of her tormentor, who posted suggestive photographs of Cohen on the blog and described her as a "ho" and a "psychotic, lying, whoring... skank."

The blog was removed in March.

But Cohen, who has appeared on runways for top designers around the world and on the covers of numerous fashion magazines, was determined to pursue the case to learn the identity of the blogger.

"If somebody attacks somebody on the street you're not going to let it go," she told ABC's "Good Morning America" in an exclusive interview on Wednesday 19 August. "If somebody attacks you personally you're not going to let it go.

"Why should I just ignore it? I couldn't find one reason to ignore it," Cohen said. "So I didn't."

Steven Wagner, Cohen's lawyer, told AFP that following the court ruling, Google turned over the email address and IP addresses from each time the blogger had logged on to the blog.

The email address allowed Cohen to immediately figure out who the blogger was.

She told ABC she was relieved to discover that the woman who created the blog -- whom she declined to identify -- was not someone close to her.

"She's an irrelevant person in my life," Cohen said. "She's just somebody that, whenever I would go out to a restaurant, to a party in New York City, she was just that girl that was always there."

Cohen said she called the woman on the telephone and told her: "I just want you to know that if I've ever done anything to you to actually deserve this then I'm really very sorry.

"I said, 'I forgive you, it doesn't matter any more.'"

Wagner said, however, that Cohen planned to pursue a defamation case against the woman.

He told ABC the case was "sending out a message that the Internet is no longer a safe harbor for defamatory language."

"I don't know if it'll change the Internet," he added. "It'll change the way some people act on the Internet."

Google said that while the company does not tolerate "cyber bullying" it is also respectful of privacy.

"We sympathize with anyone who may be the victim of cyber bullying," Andrew Pederson, a Google spokesman, said in an email statement to AFP.

"We also take great care to respect privacy concerns and will only provide information about a user in response to a subpoena or other court order," he said.

"If content is found by a court to be defamatory, we will of course remove it immediately," Pederson added.

By Chris Lefkow