Fear is the killer.
There are sexual predators online and people may have lost their jobs because someone within their company uncovered a personal Blog and dumped the Blogger because they were not a “team player.” My initial, gut feeling after reading today’s article in BusinessWeek entitled, Big Brother Is Reading Your Blog, is similar to the same reactions I had when the world went batty over the concept of cookies in banner ads.
Give it a rest.
Here’s a snippet from Big Brother Is Reading Your Blog:
“Corporate bloggers are also coping with increased vigilance by bosses. Getting fired for blog entries is so common now that it’s come to be characterized by the term ‘dooced.’ Dooce.com, a blog kept by one of the dooced, has seen its traffic more than double over the past year, according to Web site ranker Alexa. One networker who asked not to be identified says she regularly peppers her entries with fiction so she can avoid being identified by her employer.”
There are bad people out there. Agreed. Much in the same way you don’t walk around with your wallet around your neck as a visual advertisement for how much money you’re carrying, you have to be wise enough to know that anything you publish can and will be used against you in a court of law (or simply by someone doing a quick Google-check to see what the online world echoes back) online.
What kind of privacy rights do you have when you publish to the Web?
What are you doing to make sure that you don’t become just another victim?
Read the article here: BusinessWeek – Big Brother Is Reading Your Blog.