Blogging and Privacy

Jeffrey Rosen of George Washington University Law School writes in "Your Blog Or Mine" in the New York Times Magazine about the intersection of private lives with public blogging. As someone who has seen the effect that blogging/web diaries can have in the real world, I understand many of the issue that Rosen writes about. One of the biggest issues is not when writes about one's self, but about others in one's life. The consensus from people interviewed in the article seems to be that discussing people without their permission in an identifiable way is not appropriate. The main thing I guess that bloggers and web diarists need to remember is that they should show discretion about what they write about, and although they write anonymously and disguise the identities of the people they talk about, they should perhaps write as if they are not.