Safe blogging

Awhile back I wrote an article for bCentral about blogging and the potential security risks involved. Since blogging is increasingly seen as a marketing tool (viz recent articles in Marketing and elsewhere) I thought it would be worth repeating them here.

• Spamming. Because search engines rate sites that are widely cited and linked to, spammers will try to use the ‘comment’ feature on blogs to include links to sites they are promoting. Use your blogging software to restrict anonymous comments.
• Privacy. The laws of libel apply to blogs too. Also the rules of common sense. Don’t post anything you wouldn’t want your mother to read. Even if your blog is anonymous or pseudonymous your privacy isn’t necessarily guaranteed. For personal or family blogs it is especially important to keep personal information away from the site. The EFF has a useful guide to blogging anonymously.
• Confidentiality. Employee blogs and company blogs could inadvertently (or deliberately) be used to disclose confidential information. Conversely, if you blog about your employer, be discreet. Don’t join the list of bloggers who have been fired because of their online comments.
• Backup. Make sure you keep a backup of your blog contents. Losing a year’s worth of daily postings would be as bad as leaving the only copy of your first novel on the bus. And blogs do get turned into novels. Two examples: Mil Millington’s Things My Girlfriend and I have Argued About or Jessica Cutler’s sex-and-politics blog set in Washington, pictured above.

Related posts:

1. Business blogging survey results
2. Blogging for business
3. 50m blogs already. Where will it end?
4. How to keep data on laptops safe
5. Creating a corporate blog