Blogging has opened all sorts of doors for people just like you and me to get their ideas and thoughts published on the web. According to the blog search engine Technorati- in 2007 there was over 112 million blogs.

What the mass population of bloggers don’t realize is that sometimes you’re the words typed out on your blog can have legal and social consequences. Take Ellen Simonetti for example. She used to work as an air hostess for Delta Airlines. She had a blog entitled: "Queen of Sky: Diary of a flight attendant" On this blog she posted pictures of herself online in her air hostess uniform. Even though she didn’t mention delta airlines in her blog, Delta deemed some of the content on her blog and suspended and then later fired her.

This is not the only case of its kind, by the end of 2009, US payouts related to damages caused by blogging amounted to 17.4 million. Several cases have been brought before the national court, with charges of defamation and liability caused by bloggers, and many employees if last their jobs for blogging about the company they work for. Usually they get fired because they insult the company that they work for, or some cases blogger even give away company secrets on their blogs. In 2005, a guy called Mark Jen worked for Google for 10 days before being fired. He blogged about Google’s secrets and posted information about their finances before their actual financial returns had been published

If that’s not all, in some countries people have actually been arrested for entries posted on their blogs. Authoritarian and totalitarian governments view blogs with an iron fist. There are thousands of blogs out there and blogs are much harder to control than other forms of media.

Kareem Amer, an Egyptian blogger was actually sentenced to 3 years in jail for insulting the Islam religion and the president of Egypt on his blog. In Myanmar, another blogger Nay Phone Latt was sentenced to 20 years in jail for posting a cartoon of the state head onto his blog.

Another danger of blogging is the potential danger to personal danger. Often bloggers post personal information about where they live, where the hang out and what they are doing. They have been severe cases of cyber stalking and internet homicide, related to the use of blogs. There are many infamous cases of internet homicide. One example is Michael John Anderson. He was known as "The Craigslist killer" he advertised a post for a babysitter online and lured a girl called Katherine Olson in Minnesota by shooting her in the back.

Whatever your reason for blogging be careful what you write. Where your job is concerned, be especially careful. Most companies have extremely confidential information that could be detrimental if it is spread. They share this information with you because they trust you, breaking this trust could be detrimental to your career.