Skank is such a great word. There’s just something about those underused-slang-insults that give them that extra punch.

The power of anonymity on the other hand is not always such a great thing, especially when its used by skanks in the name of free speech.

Liskula Cohen, a model from NY would understand the full effects of both.

She has just won a landmark case against Google forcing the company to reveal the person responsible for calling her a “psychotic, lying, whoring … skank” and an “old hag” on a blog called Skanks in NYC, which was hosted by Blogger (and owned by GOOG). The anonymous blog was almost entirely devoted to insulting her and contained just five entries all posted in August last year.

The issue about whether the marks are defamatory aside (and this is yet to be decided), anyone can relate to the hurt a personal attack like that on a public domain may cause. Trading insults openly over Twitter is one thing – this appears to be the latest celebrity past-time – but cowardly anonymous personal attacks are another.

“I’m a human being. I bleed. I have feelings. When I saw that blog, it was awful. All I can say for this person is, I really truly hope that they have more in their life than this,” Cohen is quoted as saying.

There’s no argument that this should serve as a warning for those that think this sort of behaviour is justified or welcome online. It’s just skanky.

Cohen’s lawyer, Steven Wagner put it well when he said “The rules for defamation on the Web — for actual reality as well as virtual reality — are the same. The Internet is not a free-for-all.”

That’s not to say the latest decision might not set an unwelcome precedent in the blogosphere where anonymity has its place when used for justified protection of sources. The laws protecting those that protect their sources have never been clear and have justifyingly been a bone of contention for Australian journalists, some of whom have been jailed for the act.

On a larger scale what are the consequences of the ruling for sites that operate in the spirit of Wikileaks, where people can post classified and censored information anonymously. Wikileaks promises to “protect internal dissidents, whistleblowers, journalists and bloggers who face legal or other threats related to publishing.” According to the site it has received 1.2 million documents from dissident communities and anonymous sources.

Notable anonymous “leaks” include details of Guantanamo Bay procedures that included reference to detainees that were off-limits to the Red Cross, despite the US Government repeatedly denying such prisoners existed; the publication of members of the far-right British National Party, which included “well-standing” citizens; and earlier this year a document from Iceland’s Kaupthing Bank, just prior to the countries financial crisis, showing large sums of money loaned to various leaders of the bank and large amounts of money written off.

Anonymity can be a powerful privilege, but it should be used for good not evil. I guess Google is going to learn its own lesson here.

In the meantime, let’s not devalue its power by being skanks.

UPDATE: On a related note this:

“… the District of Columbia Court of Appeals weighed in on what procedural safeguards are necessary to protect the rights of Internet users to engage in anonymous speech. In Solers, Inc. v. Doe, the D.C. high court set out a stringent standard for its lower courts to follow and emphasized that a plaintiff “must do more than simply plead his case” to unmask an anonymous speaker claimed to have violated the law.”

UPDATE 2: The blogger whose name Google revealed has been identified as Rosemary Port – she is now suing Google.

“When I was being defended by attorneys for Google, I thought my right to privacy was being protected,” she told the NY Daily News.

“But that right fell through the cracks. Without any warning, I was put on a silver platter for the press to attack me.

“I would think that a multi-billion dollar conglomerate would protect the rights of all its users.”

Her suit claims Google “breached its fiduciary duty to protect her expectation of anonymity,” Ms Port’s lawyer, Salvatore Strazzullo, said.

“I’m ready to take this all the way to the Supreme Court,” Mr Strazzullo said.

“Our Founding Fathers wrote The Federalist Papers under pseudonyms. Inherent in the First Amendment is the right to speak anonymously.