Here’s a tough question that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough - how much personal information should you release?

It is a question that every single blogger around the world should ask themselves at least once. It is also a question with a different answer for everyone. Here’s how I handle the whole issue:

The Name

First and foremost, I honestly believe there is little reason to not use your real name. Sure, if your a hacker or run a Fake Steve Jobs type of blog you have an excuse, but other than that is there any reason?

People often use ID theft as an excuse, but I’ve always used my real name and have never experienced such a problem as a result of it. Another excuse is safety… well that can be a controversial subject. Releasing your name isn’t going to result in a sudden increase in assassination or kidnapping attempts (unless you’ve been pissing off the mob). If someone really wanted to find you - they could do so anyway. Whenever you do something online there is always a paper trail, and if someone is dedicated enough they can find the person who left it.

I think MySpace is a perfect example of that. People experience horrible problems regardless of whether or not they release their name or even post a picture of themself.

“Say Cheese!”

While I have yet to ever really release a photo of myself online, I do sometimes post a picture of my ipodified-head (thank you Photoshop):

Some people release their photos, some people don’t. Once again I don’t think releasing a photo is generally going to cause any issues. Only reason I don’t do it is I simply hate getting my picture taken.

Friends/Family

I hardly ever mention my relationship to people that I talk about (if I personally know them), so obviously I don’t release their names. I understand that some people are uncomfortable with the whole “Internet thing” and don’t want their name out there, so to avoid any problems I usually just mention them as “someone I talked to said…” or “a friend of mine once said…”. I know how much information I want released about myself, but other people may have a different comfort level.

Some bloggers simply give their family members nicknames.

Age/Location

I can understand why you wouldn’t want to release your own age, I didn’t do it for the longest time (I’m 18 by the way). I think really the only time you have to worry about this is if you’re young (there are a lot of sickos out there, go on YouTube and read some comments to find 1,000s of them).

As far as location goes, I’ve always said I live near Syracuse, NY (The city with one of the worst College Football teams on the planet… Booyah!). Only reason I mention the closest major city is because most people associate NY State with NY City a bit too much, there are hundreds of towns, villages, and cities - NY City ain’t the only one.

I think releasing your location is a bit like releasing your name - generally speaking it won’t cause any issues. But then again, stereotypes can surface as a result of posting your location. If you’re a computer nerd and you say you live in Europe, some people will think “Pirate!”, if you say you live in Canada some people’s first reaction is “Canada, Eh?” , etc.

Everything Else

Well, of course you really shouldn’t be posting things like your address, SSN, credit card #, etc. That is basic ID theft prevention 101. I think the only time it is safe to post your contact address or phone number is if it is for your business.

Well, that’s it. How much info you release is totally up to you. Everyone has a different comfort level in regards to posting their info online, what is yours?

Stay tuned for even more Back To The Basics posts!

What is your definition of a splog? For a site to be considered a splog does it have to steal entire articles, or just bits and pieces of them? These are all important questions when deciding whether or not to file a DMCA notice.

I think pretty much everyone (except sploggers, of course) will agree that blogs that are nothing but stolen articles are splogs. After all they go onto your site, steal your work, post it on a page with bunches of ads, and enjoy the rewards. Most likely they don’t even do any of the work either, since there are numerous RSS to Blog tools that sploggers use to automate the entire process.

Now those are the easy splogs to spot, but what about blogs that are nothing but quoted articles? Generally speaking they are breaking no laws, and there is a much less chance of them causing any damage. Their keyword to content ratio is so out of whack that I would be shocked if the Google Bot didn’t pick up on it.

With that said, are they really splogs?

I think one could argue that yes, they are. They don’t do any work, they still get free money, and they add little value to the Internet. But now things get complicated - think about Digg.com

Most posts on Digg use quotes from the article, and Digg gets advertising revenue. The Digg crew doesn’t manually go through and submit all of those things, it all happens “automatically”. So, couldn’t you argue that Digg is actually a splog?

But if you say Digg is a splog, wouldn’t that also mean Reddit and the other social networks are also splogs? What exactly is the difference between them and the real threats?

I think the difference is in what they offer to the Internet. Sploggers want to get as rich as possible with as little work as possible, thus their sites are often lame and provide worthless content to the Internet. Social media sites want to provide an actual service.

For a while I’ve always thought ad blockers were illegal, since they keep a certain part of a web page from displaying (thus modifying a copyrighted work). But I started thinking about this even more since I saw this little charm on Digg, and I have come to the conclusion that they are perfectly legal.

When you copyright a website you are copyrighting the code, not what it looks like. When you copyright a program, you copyright the code, not what it looks like. When you copyright a book you are copyrighting the text, not what it looks like.

“Look and feel” cases have been fought in court over and over (Apple vs Microsoft, for example), and for the most part the “look and feel” of something isn’t really copyrightable. The individual items are copyrightable, but you can’t really copyright having a menu bar up top, or having an icon bar here or a link list there. You can patent it, however, but how many people get a $10,000 patent on a website’s design?

Adblockers don’t really modify the code, all they do is prevent a certain section from being displayed. How is it any different from that part of the site being incompatible. How is it any different from not having flash installed, thus not being able to view a flash object. How is it different from viewing the site in a text-based browser?

The logic of “ad blockers are illegal” also means “not having flash installed when visiting a flash-enabled site is illegal”. That part of the site isn’t being displayed, so yeah it must be illegal.

Another common argument is “oh, well they are stealing from me by reading my free content without viewing ads” Now think about that for a second. They are giving away free content and bitching about people stealing it by not showing advertisements. How the heck is that stealing? Stealing would be taking paid-membership-only content and posting it for free somewhere or taking free content and claiming it as your own.

So, what do you think: legal or illegal? Ethical or not ethical?

Some blogs are obviously splogs, but others are a bit harder to spot. Here are a few quick thoughts that should run through your head before linking or subscribing to a blog:

Is the layout lame?

More often than not sploggers will choose to use default layouts for their sites. I’d be wary if a blog you are visiting uses the default Kubrick theme for WordPress or an unmodified Blogger theme.

Wait, that’s my footer!

You can add some really neat things into your post’s footers for your RSS feed via FeedBurner. I think Nusuni.com is set to show a Digg-This link, add to del.icio.us, and a comment count link. Splogs will almost always pick up those extra things as well as the content, so the second I see them on some posts and not on others I know I’m dealing with a splog.

Nude chicks and SEO tips? This is my kinda site!

I recently had to deal with some splog that had stolen a article that had the word “Nude” in it once, and it added it to a page called nude.html with a bunch of porn as well. Needless to say seeing SEO articles on a page called nude.html is a bit iffy, wouldn’t you agree?

A bit too much Adsense…

The second I see more than 2 adsense blocks when I first open a page is the second I leave the site. Adsense should be spread out for best results, but sploggers toss them in one big pile.

Free-Mosothelioma-Information-Viagra-Vioxx-Porn-Warez-Info.biz

Although many keyword domains are owned by legit affiliate marketers, most (especially .info and .biz) are owned by sploggers. Some people don’t seem to understand domains like “free-viagra.biz” or “buy-mesothelioma-now.info” are something a spammer would use.

RSS Feed

A true blog will have an easy-to-find RSS feed. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but splogs almost never have them. Why? Current RSS advertising solutions suck - so they want people to always visit their splog.

Check The Comments… Not!

Oh wait, you can’t. Most non-Blogger splogs don’t allow them. And despite the fact something like 70% of blogger blogs are splogs, most splogs are not blogger blogs (try saying that 5 times fast).

The newest versions of WordPress for the 2.2 and 2.0 branches have been released. They include several security fixes. You can download the latest version here.