The Biggest Danger of "Anonymous" Blogging - You Could Be Exposed or Even Dooced!

It is no secret that there has been an explosion of blogs in the internet. Everywhere you look, people are blogging about everything under the sun, even celebrities! Blogging can be great fun and even monetarily remunerative in many cases. However, there is a hidden -or not so hidden- danger for those that are blogging about their private lives. These persons blog about the most intimate aspects of their daily existence and are growing more and more popular by the day.

Most blogers blog under nicknames and pseudonyms and thus believe that they are anonymous. Not so! Nowadays anyone with some hacking knowledge can find out who you really are. Scary, isn't it? There are other ways that bloggers can get exposed. For instance, consider what happened to Heather B. Armstrong, creater of http://www.dooce.com/. She had a blog in which she wrote about her personal life, including gossip about her coworkers and complaints about her job in general. Her bosses found out about it and fired her. This resulted in an avalanche of media exposure and created a new term, "dooced". It means to get fired for what you write about in your blog.

That is an extreme case, obviously, but it has happened to many unaware bloggers. There are other, less complicated ways of being exposed. What if a friend or family member were to somehow find out about your blog and read things you never wanted them to find out in the first place? This is specially upsetting if what you are writing about is your sex life. Most recently a very popular sex blogger was outed as Zoe Margolis. She was the owner of the very popular http://girlwithaonetrackmind.blogspot.com/ weblog under the pseudonym of "The Girl". She was offered a book deal and she gladly took it, thinking she would remain anonymous after the book was published. Sadly, it wasn't so because the press exposed her. Her book is doing very well in Amazon.com but her personal life might never be the same. Her previous lovers, her friends, family members, coworkers and basically everyone she knows are now aware of many very intimate details of her life.

Sure, your blog might never get published and your story might never be plastered on several newspapers and other media. However, what about the personal embarrassment, broken friendships, even endangered marriages that could result from someone reading a blog you wrote about them? Considering it might be dangerous, why do people still blog about their personal lives? As someone who has done this, I can tell you some reasons why:

- It is refreshing and gratifying to receive input from complete strangers about your problems, issues and stories. It gives you a perspective you might not have been able to get otherwise.
- It is a supposedly safe venue to express yourself as you might not be able to do so with people you actually know.
- For those who like to write, it is the purest form of written expression, right to a ready-made audience. Instant comments, instant gratification.
- Some actually blog as some type of therapy. Expressing their emotions in a "safe" environment helps them deal with whatever they are going through.
- It is titillating to a certain extent, sort of like exposing yourself to complete strangers. Many could call it exhibitionism.

Indeed, there are many reasons why people blog, these are just some of them.

What to do to really protect yourself? First of all, try not to blog about your personal life at all. If you have to do this, then you need to mask all locations, names and other details as best as you can. Consider looking into a paid or password-protected blogging site where you can further protect your content and allow only those you chose to read your blog.

All in all there is no sure fire way of preventing this danger but you can learn from other's mistakes and, perhaps, be able to keep blogging safely.