Can a blogger go too far?

A story on the subject of celebrity caught my eye on the Guardian tonight about a fashion model who went to court in order to find out the identity of an anonymous blogger. Google has been made to reveal that identity because the blogger made some rather rude comments about the model.

The attorney of New York fashion model Liskula Cohen, Steven Wagner, said “the decision would send a message to bloggers about the limits of permissible Internet speech”.

And this reminded me of the hoo-ha that aroused bloggers at the time of NightJack, when the Times leaked who he was.

Iain Dale read the Times article and called it “vomit inducing.”

Hopi Sen wondered about the risks of outing a blogger.

And Sunder Katwala noted many more bloggers who were disgusted at the time.

The question is, when does a blogger go too far? And what right does Google of revealing that identity, which they, I assumed legally, were duty bound to keep confidential? Certainly the fact that it was just mere poppycock, and by the bloggers own admission “trash talk” (or something to that effect), makes me feel that this is unjustified. Thats not to say that I don’t think a blogger can go too far, but this seems over the top (at, admittedly, first glance). I wonder what the general consensus is?