On August 15th Dave Astor of Editor & Publisher posted an account of what had happened under the title, "Blogger's 'Impersonation' of Columnist Leads to Creators-Google Tussle."

This account also said, "Aug. 13 and Aug. 14 e-mails from 'The Blogger Team' at Google indicated that the company may finally be looking into the problem. But the piece attributed to Sowell remains on the blog as of this afternoon-- Aug. 15th."

This was more than two weeks after the phony column was posted and more than ten days after Google was notified by the attorney for Creators Syndicate.

Finally, on August 18th, Dave Astor of Editor & Publisher posted another account with the headline, "Blog No Longer Posting Wrongly Attributed Sowell Piece."

What is surprising to me is that the bogus column sent out with my name on it has been spread around the Internet in a chain letter, which means that people are passing on something to others when they have no way of knowing whether it is for real or a hoax, much less whether they might get drawn into a lawsuit.

The implications of this episode reach well beyond the newspaper industry. Everyone should be concerned about Internet anarchy in which anybody can pretend to be anybody else, unless something is done to stop it.

If hoaxes like this go unchecked, who can believe anything they see on the Internet? What good would the Internet be then?

If the people who control Internet web sites do not do anything, is that not an open invitation for government to step in? And does anybody want politicians to control what can go on the Internet?