I got a call yesterday morning from a girl at ABC 4 news in Salt Lake City. She said she was doing a story on people who keep blogs or family websites. How she found my blog I have no idea (although I do come up quite high on google for quite a few search terms) but she wanted to interview me to get some thoughts on blogs.
Around 2:30 she showed up at my house with a camera woman and we sat in my office/kids room and talked while I sat in front of my computer. They video taped the whole thing. It was pretty cool. She was mostly interested in security issues with posting information on the internet. She wanted to know what kinds of stuff I would and wouldn’t post and what kinds of risks there are with posting information online.
I think the biggest risk with posting stuff online is that a predator finds it and comes after you. I’d guess posting kids about children is the most dangerous. I don’t know anyone who has had something happen to them but I know that if you post a picture of your children and post your address, it’s not too difficult for someone to find them if they want to.
Also, I think something people don’t realize is that search engines are going to pick up their websites. All it takes is one link from basically any other website and their site will be listed in the search engines. At that point they WILL get other people looking at the site and reading what they have written. Unless you password protect something on the internet, it’s public information and will be used by the public!
The story is supposed to air Tuesday night (May 31, 2005) on the 10pm news. Should be cool.