The Aftermath of a Privacy Breach…

I posted a while back about
an unfolding story in Cleveland involving a judge suing the Cleveland
Plain Dealer for unmasking her identity as a pseudonymous poster on the
cleveland.com website (pseudonym:  "lawmiss") about a case she was
presiding over.  She was removed from the case, but the newspaper kept
digging and found that the "lawmiss" ID was used on a number of other
websites and was attached to various racial and other inappropriate
comments for a judge to be making.  While none of the other websites
has identified "lawmiss" as the judge, the Plain Dealer ascertained
that many of the postings were made from the judge's work computer.

Questions have arisen in the Cleveland news media about
whether any other action should be taken against the judge or whether
potential defendants could have her removed from their cases on the
basis of comments she has made online.  

One thing that really interests me is the fact that all of this came about because the original website disclosed the "lawmiss"
identity as belonging to the judge (likely in concert with her
daughter).  If this had not been disclosed, none of the other
information would ever have come to light.  It seems likely that the
original website was in breach of its own privacy policy and probably
several other privacy-protecting laws.  However, there is an obvious
public interest balance in this case.  My question is:  What happens
next time when it isn't a judge or a public official whose identity is
disclosed?  If someone has a vendetta against someone else and
discloses their identity on one website, their pseudonymous comments
can potentially be tracked all over the Internet whether disclosure of
the identifying information is in the public interest or not.

And what about the case where someone with a vendetta against
someone else poses as that other person online and posts inappropriate
comments in the hope of getting the victim into trouble?  How easy is
it for a victim of such conduct to disprove the inference that (s)he
made the postings herself/himself?  (This is more likely to arise in a case
where a name or other identifying information is attached to comments,
but the name/identifying information is false.)

Also, if the Plain Dealer and cleveland.com are lauded for
disclosing the judge's identity in this case, will this give the sign
to other online service providers that they are not required to take
their own privacy policies seriously?