Absolutely Bananas: Seattle mom blog

Blogging smart: How to protect yourself and your family online

As part two of my Essential Advice for New Bloggers series, we’re talking about Protecting yourself and your family. Many mommy bloggers (myself included) start their blogs as a random, ‘hey! this could be fun’ whim. There’s not an overall strategy… there’s not a whole lot of thought put into it. Mainly there’s a couple of cute pictures of our kids and this one funny story that we want to tell.

But the sad fact is that the internet can be a scary place, and we bloggers need to take measures to protect ourselves and our families. You know what they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

There are two levels of internet safety that we’ll talk about today. First is the minimum safety measures that every blogger should take. Then we’ll cover the grey-area of blogging safety. I’ll give you the tools you need to figure out a level of security that you’re comfortable with.

The basics
In this section I’ve outlined some basic safety measures that all bloggers should follow.

1) Don’t make it easy for someone to find your physical residence. Use common sense to protect yourself and your family when posting pictures, and check the background of the picture too. For example;

• Never post your physical address or phone number.
• Never post photographs that show the front of your residence, or that would make it easy to find and/or identify your residence.
• Never post photographs of your car where the license plate number is visible.

2) Never post personal information.

• Don’t use last names; your own or the last names of your friends or family.
• Never post the name of your childrens’ school or daycare, your place of work, or any similar locations that you and your family frequent.
• If you own your own domain name, your full name and mailing address are easily obtainable through a basic “who is” search. You can check to see if this is currently the case by going to whois.net and typing in your domain name. If it brings up your name and address, this information is available to anyone who wants it. The good news is that you can contact the company who you registered your domain with to add on domain privacy (often you can do this through their website). The service will cost you a small fee, but is worth it for peace of mind.

3) Never post information that will make you a target. Think about possible ways that information could be misused before posting. Some basics include;

• Don’t advertise that your family is going away (and your house will be empty) before you leave on vacation. Better to post all the great material after you get home.
• Don’t tell the world that your husband is going away (leaving you alone in the house). Go ahead and write that long and rambling post about how lame it is to be home alone, but wait to publish it until he’s back in the house.
• Don’t advertise that your back window is broken, or your locks aren’t working, or that you’re sleeping in a tent in your backyard tonight. If in doubt, it’s always better to post information after the fact.

4) Assume that everything you post to the web is permanent. With the advent of archives and RSS, not to mention the old-school print button, it’s pretty much impossible to completely remove something from the web. (That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to remove it if you’ve posted something that breaks #1-3 above). Keep this in the back of your mind when you post something, and if in doubt, don’t post.

How safe is safe enough?
So you’re doing the obvious stuff… Great. But is that enough? The answer is, it’s up to you. There’s a lot of gray area in internet safety, from not posting, to password-protection, to anything goes. Let’s look at some less straightforward areas where safety can be compromised, and talk about what you can do about it.

Have a picture policy
Once a picture is put online, it can end up anywhere and be used for anything. Really. Seriously. Think long and hard about the following:

• Do you want/need to post pictures of your children? It’s a good idea to talk this over with your spouse, to ensure that you’re both in agreement here.
• Try to avoid posting anything that’s remotely suggestive. I’m a big believer in no naked pictures. Ever. No matter how cute.
• If you’re not totally comfortable posting pictures of your kids, consider posting non-recognizable pictures (artistically cropped, slightly blurry, from the back, etc.).
• It’s a basic courtesy to never post a recognizable picture of a friend or family member (or their child) without their express permission to do so.

Here’s some related reading to help you determine your policy about picture use: When baby blogs go bad, one mother’s account of how her baby’s pictures were stolen and put to a use that she never expected.

Having trouble deciding what makes sense for you? Try this: think about the worst-case scenario of what could happen if you do post those pictures. Are you ok with it? If yes, post away. If no, don’t.

Be smart about your word and topic choice
The content that you post, the stuff you talk about, and the words that you use all will influence WHO comes to your blog. Keep in mind that the “yucky” people use google too. Think about:

• What words will you use/not use? If you don’t want to edit your vocabulary, can you change a word’s spelling so as not to be searchable? Certain words can be taken out of context and bring some pretty scary searchers to your blog.
• What topics do you want to blog about? Bloggers who write a lot about sex will get weirdos visiting their blogs; it’s inevitable. If you really want to write about sex, consider upping the security on your personal information in order to protect yourself.

Avoid making enemies
The funny thing about the online world is that it’s easy to be mean, aloof, disrespectful, and even nasty. It’s easier than in real life. I don’t know… something about the fact that you don’t have to look the person in the eye and see their reaction. But be careful when having heated debates on your blog, other blogs, and online forums. Enemies that you create in the heat of the moment can come back to haunt you. It’s easier to be nice now than to try and shake off a nasty stalker later.

Don’t be scared… be smart.
When I started blogging, and then started thinking about safety, the horror stories nearly scared me off blogging altogether. That’s certainly not my intent here. Blogging has a lot to offer.  Just be sure that you’re informed about the risks so that you can make good decisions that you feel comfortable with. And then, blog away!

Here is some helpful related reading:

• Blog Stalkers - Personal Safety for Bloggers (good takeaways based on the author’s personal experience with a stalker)
• Be a Safe Blogger (includes information about how to keep google from archiving your content)

Time to discuss… what are YOU doing to keep your blog safe? What do you worry about? And are there any basic guidelines that I’ve overlooked?

Related Posts

• Advice for new bloggers: Taking your blog to the next level
• Fitting blogging into your life without losing your mind, relationships, and waistline
• Advice for new bloggers: Turning one-time visitors into repeat readers