So my friend Stephanie just posted an article about a woman who found images of her children being used on someone else's site. I'm not sure how you can find this out but it's not the first time I've ever heard of it. I have a couple other friends who already made their blogs private. I am scared by these stories but in the past I was hoping they were no more than "stories". I also don't want to let the constant barrage of media telling me to be afraid of EVERYTHING to make me paranoid or less free to live the way I'd like. So I took some small precautions like taking our name off of our profile and things but I still let it run wild in all of my posts.
So, I'm really not sure what to do. I think eventually here I am going to need to make this thing private. I was wondering how many of you are toying with this idea as well? I also was wondering if anyone knows of any other news articles that deal with this issue? I have searched in the past but not been able to find anything to really alarm me - excluding the one I read on Steph's post. Let me know what you think either through commenting or through my poll on the side...
10 comments:
I am concerned about this too. I just don't know how concerned to be. Help!
Kricket
so there are millions of pictures of children on the internet and thousands of blogs- it would be pretty crazy if someone interfered with your blog like that- the chances are rare, just like the chances are rare of many of things we watch on the news happening to us. but, when it comes to our kids, i know caution is generally a good rule of thumb. i always think about making my blog private-i think eventually i will just have to do that. it kind of concerns me that i don't know who a lot of the people are who revisit my blog frequently. but i'm sure a true stalker would know how to mask their origin pretty well. and that slim, but possible chance is what makes me lean towards private access.
http://ianmarcus.blogspot.com/2007/08/why-i-am-mr-sparkle.html
I hope you can click on that. I don't know if you know Curt and Amy, but this is the weirdest thing I've ever heard of, and it's not harmful. just weird where a picture of their son ended up (and they are still public).
Personally, I'm not worried at all. The chances of them actually being harmed is inconsiderably small. Think of all the millions of blogs out there with millions of pictures.
I hate local news in any form. It's all one-a-billion, small-chance, stuff or the occasional sappy piece. I don't want it to affect my freedom.
i've gone back and forth, back and forth for a while now...i think the chances are really slim also - i mean, like patria said, there are millions of pictures and thousands of blogs - the chances of them finding YOURS is slim. it's really just the idea that freaks me out, not so much that i think someone has actually done it with my pictures already. also, my line of thinking is that if it can happen now, i'm sure it will only get easier as the internet advances. and who knows- maybe it's not the strangers i should be afraid of, but friends of friends of my friends... i just wanted a little more control over who read about the details of my life. anyway - i don't think people who don't go private are crazy by any means...i used to not be paranoid at all. i'm not sure what happened...
that's the exact reason i went private. i almost didn't even start a blog b/c of the things i have heard about these types of issues. i don't feel "paranoid" - just careful with the things i hold close :)
I am not worried. I am with Brooke. There is some small chance but not enough to worry about it. I am not going to live my life in fear or be paranoid. More people see my kids everyday in the real world way more than on my blog.
so obviously i have given this a lot of thought because i'm a private family blogger. sure, the odds are it won't happen, but at the same time, i'm sure the people it does happen to say the same thing. i don't feel hindered by being overprotective in any way, & at the same time that i feel that could happen to me, i also feel like i could win the lottery or the hgtv dream home. i don't feel like i'm negative, i just don't feel untouchable.
I have thought about this, and decided to not make my family blog private, in that you have to have a personal invitation to read it, but I made it so that it is not found by internet search engines and does not show up in my Blogger profile.
Amy jo - Sweet! I just totally went and did the same thing and it was so easy! That makes me feel WAAAY better!
How funny I find this post on your blog because I was going to write you and tell you we just went private. I've always felt we should go private, but what made me really do it is when I heard that Maya's bithfather found our blog!(I know most people don't have to worry about this) From what we hear, he's not a good guy, so we decided to protect our family! He knew nothing about us, but I guess he went on google and found our blog. Anyway, I won't go into detail, but if you can give me your email address, I can send you an invite to our blog. monicachecketts@hotmail.com
Thanks!
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