There's No Privacy on the Net

jedi jaywalker sent me this link to a list of blogging do's and don'ts that makes a lot of good points. There's one point with which I have to disagree:

5. dont tell your mom, your work, your friends, the people you want to date, or the people you want to work for about your blog. if they find out and you'd rather they didnt read it, ask them nicely to grant you your privacy.

First, from a practical standpoint, if I didn't tell friends and family about my blog nobody would ever read it! And my girlfriend's reaction to my blog when she first explored it convinced me that I was onto a good thing (with her, not necessarily the blog!).

Second, however, is the big one - it's nonsensical to ask people to "grant you your privacy" when you blog for the whole world. There's just no way you can keep people from reading it, unless you put up some kind of password protection, which kind of defeats the point of blogging. If you're saying things that you don't think those you know in the "real" world would approve of, than be completely anonymous. But don't expect that someday, somehow, somebody won't stumble onto your secret identity, Clark.