It's in Public, Silly

Bloggers are not writing in diaries and keeping them in their desks. Well, maybe they are, but what I mean to say is that blogs are forums that are published in a place where anyone in all the public world with an internet connection might read them. It is not a private place.

When the Blogger Blogs, Can the Employer Intervene

As the practice of blogging has spread, employees like Mr. Kennedy are coming to the realization that corporations, which spend millions of dollars protecting their brands, are under no particular obligation to tolerate threats, real or perceived, from the activities of people who become identified with those brands, even if it is on their personal Web sites.

They are also learning that the law offers no special protections for blogging - certainly no more than for any other off-duty activity.

Of course not. If I were to write a letter to the editor of my local newspaper about how my project at work was going, and I talk trash, would I expect to keep my job? Why would I ever think that? Publishing your name, address, and employer, and then talking about the inner workings of your workplace is ill-advised. It can harm your company - the people who *pay* you - and probably will.

Yes, I suppose there's the concept that you can blog anonymously, but that's very tricky. Somewhere, someone will know who you are, and if the kind of things you're discussing are illegal, that person will be obliged to give you up, if confronted.

You work somewhere with conditions so bad that you feel they must be exposed publicly, and you feel it's your duty to do so? Fine. Do it. But do not expect to keep that job when it all comes out.

I do not talk about my work on my blog. You know why? Because I have the best job in the whole wide world, and I want to keep it.