Can someone please forward me the memo I seem to have missed.

I believe it might have said something along the lines of:

"All blogs hosted on this service are to deal, exclusively, in the affairs of new families. Moreover, it is preferable that they be authored by bored housebound individuals with little better to report on than their own domestic affairs. Examples of acceptable topics for discussion include, but are not limited to: Kyle's soccer game on Saturday; the recent family trip to ______; your woeful poetry; Summer's geography assignment; your new job at_____ ;Kip's new teeth; the recent and regrettable death of the family pet, etc."

Having only recently discovered the "Next Blog>>" button, I thought I might have a bit of a perv on what other randomly selected blogs were doing. Much to my dismay, the next sixteen consecutive blogs all were authored by people who seemed to be interested in little more than gloating about the unparalleled awesomeness of their own private affairs.


I don't quite understand what compels people to publish all this information. After all of the alarmist reporting on online predators and identity thieft, why are people so willing to 'give it all up' without a thought directed to how easy it is for that information to be used against their interests.


I can certainly appreciate that these people may have plenty of reasons to be proud about what they have achieved for themselves. Yet, it must be understood that some measure of self-restraint needs to be exercised, particularly in circumstances where there is a disclosure of information concerning a third party, and that third party is unaware of such disclosure, or of the possible risk that such disclosure invites.


I think it would be appropriate for personal blogs, or at least those dealing with domestic affairs, to be kept private; not because of the shameless voyeurism they seem to encourage but because there are a great many people who literally need to have it explained to them that when they have a public blog called "The Doe Family Blog" and mum complains about Kyle's soccer game on the weekend at the such and such school soccer fields, mum probably doesn't realise just how much information she has disclosed.


I really have spent more time on this than I should have. This isn't a new problem, and it certainly should have already been addressed. Nevertheless, in my work I have developed a certain awareness of what some individuals are capable of.


The tragedy is that very little would need to be done to negate the potential risk these people unknowingly expose themselves to on a daily basis.