New York Woman sues Man she tracked down through Google

September 25, 2012 (NY Post)  A business consultant who pieced together information from Google to learn about a man she says was fixating on her online has sued him in a New York court.

Carla Franklin filed the lawsuit Tuesday in state Supreme Court in Manhattan. The former model and actress wants unspecified damages and an order requiring the man to stay away from her……Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/09/25/new-york-woman-sues-man-tracked-down-through-google/#ixzz2GNHmAvpX

‘Harass’ vic goes after bum

September 25, 2012 (NY Post) Gotcha!

The cowardly creep who blasted a Columbia Business School grad as a “whore” on YouTube is the same person who has stalked her and who stole her identity over the past six years, court papers say — and the brainy beauty is not letting him get away with it.

After 2 1/2 years of acting as her own lawyer and “Internet forensic investigator,” Carla Franklin filed suit yesterday against her alleged tormentor……Read more here

Court to Google: Give woman ID of online commenter

October 20, 2010 (MSNBC) A business consultant who wants to know who’s been anonymously disparaging and fixating on her online has gotten a court to force Google to tell her.

As she joined a growing number of people who have persuaded courts to unmask troublesome cyber ciphers, Carla Franklin said Wednesday she hoped her case would help others combat similar problems.

“The Internet cannot become a safe haven for harassers and stalkers,” she said in an e-mail…..(click link above to read more)

Civilizing the Internet, One Lawsuit at a Time (For Now)

October 20, 2010 (Forbes) People can be meaner online — it’s easier to be harsh in a digital communication when you don’t have look into the faces of those you’re lashing out at. That has given birth to many private and not-so-private flame wars. When flame throwers are cloaked in anonymity, the “harsh” dial is often turned up a few notches.

Those that come under attack from anonymous critics online sometimes file lawsuits to figure out the identities of their attackers…..(click link above to read more)

Google Ordered to Name Anonymous Online Bullies

October 22, 2010 (ABC) Internet bullies, listen up. If a New York court ruling is any indication, your cloak of anonymity may be more transparent than you think.

In August, Carla Franklin, 34, a New York business consultant and Columbia Business School graduate, filed legal documents asking Google to identify people who posted unauthorized videos of her on YouTube and made disparaging comments.

This week, she scored a victory. A Manhattan judge ordered Google, which owns YouTube, to turn over identity and contact information for the person or persons who posted the videos and insults online…..(click link above to read more)

Harassed Woman Seeks Answers, Safety (video)

New York, August 23, 2010 (CBS) Erica Hill spoke with Carla Franklin and digital forensic analyst Michael Roberts on the steps Franklin is taking to find the identity of the online stalker who posted a video of her with disparaging comments.

Woman Who Took Google to Court: Safety the Issue

New York, August 23, 2010 (CBS) A woman who’s taken legal action against Google, seeking the identity of the person she says trashed her online with a false statement, says it all comes down to her safety….(click link above to view video)

And an expert in Internet matters says the case could help force many tricky legal issues to the forefront.

YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and similar social networking websites enable people to stay in constant contact, but they also make it easy for cyber-bullies to torment people anonymously.

“It’s more often now,” notes Cnet.com Senior Editor Dan Ackerman, “that we’re seeing claims where people feel they’ve been maligned online, or maybe even cyber-stalked, and they want to try to find the identity of who either posted a comment about them they didn’t like, or posted “some of their personal information.”

Businesswoman and Ivy League grad Carla Franklin, 34, says she’s been defamed online, and she’s determined to find out who did it. She says someone posted unauthorized videos of her on YouTube and assaulted her character by calling her a “whore” in the comments section alongside a clip….(click link above to read more)

NYS Senator Eric Adams, Chair of the Senate Committee on Veterans, Homeland Security and Military Affairs, Hosts an Internet Roundtable Following Suicide of 18-Year Old Rutgers Student Tyler Clementi

New York, October 7, 2010 NYS Senator Eric Adams convened a Roundtable that brought together government leaders and the private sector to develop strategies for emerging issues and changing technology concerning the Internet. The discussion enhanced interaction and partnership development between the public and private sectors on matters of Internet security and related infrastructure.

Senator Adams stated: “Our State is challenged by the need to analyze and keep pace with emerging issues and changing technology concerning the internet. Oftentimes, proposed legislation and enacted law lag years behind real-world developments. It is essential that government leaders, especially legislators, be cognizant of and collaborate harmoniously and efficiently with the private sector to safeguard our citizenry and our commerce…..(click link above to read more)

At last. Someone is standing up to the anonymous web trolls

London, UK, August 22, 2010 (Guardian)It is one of the most irritating and ubiquitous annoyances of the internet age: the anonymous commenter. Hiding behind a made-up moniker, anonymous commenters surface on virtually every blog or news website, posting bile, insults, prejudice and ignorance, often for the sheer hell of it.

In the free for all that has so far marked internet-based publishing, there seems to be no recourse for those targeted by the so-called “trolls”. Certainly not of the sort they would have if such comments were published in hard copy on the letters pages of old media newspapers and magazines, where the threat of libel has kept up standards. But, perhaps, no longer.

A law suit filed last week in New York has threatened to hold some of the internet’s more unpleasant denizens to account: a rare example of old media rules starting to be applied online.

The heroine of the tale is Carla Franklin, a graduate of Columbia Business School……(click link above to read more)

Vengeful online ads take growing toll

July 27, 2010 (MSNBC)….”With help from Craigslist, Pam — whose identity msnbc.com has agreed to protect — was able to get additional details about the ad, including the poster’s IP address. It was posted from a Yahoo.com e-mail address using her daughter’s real name, but Pam says she was able to link the ad to her daughter’s angry ex-boyfriend and his new wife. She marched down to the local sheriff’s office with the evidence. Then, she received another shock.

“They said it was a civil matter,” she said.  “The ad was rude and vulgar in every way you can think of. These two people put my daughter’s life in danger by every perv that read that Craigslist ad, and no one seems to care..”(click link above to read more)