In an interesting piece about blogging in Business Week, I come across this oddity:

A Google official says the company has lots of bloggers and just expects them to use common sense. For example, if it's something you wouldn't e-mail to a long list of strangers, don't blog it.

That might be common something, but it doesn't look like common sense to me. If I used that criterion, I can't think of anything that I'd ever blog, since I would never email anything to a long list of strangers. On my planet, that's called spamming.

If Google officials don't understand the difference between a hyperlink that someone comes across, and decides to go investigate it, and having that same person's mailbox filled with someone's uninvited ravings, they're frighteningly clueless about the internet. I wonder if this quote was taken out of context?

They must be talking about the content as in don't say something behind somesone's back that you wouldn't say to their face, otherwise it doesn't make any sense.

Tobias

Rand forgets about so-called "mailing lists". They used to be popular before the World Wide Web, and in fact, before The Internet (yes, we did have computers and e-mail back then). Mailing lists are still in use by real hackers, to use Eric Raymond's definition. Blogs? Pfft!

I don't forget about them, but I figured if he'd meant that, he'd say "listserv," and I tend to think of that as a community, not a "bunch of strangers." To me an email list is list that no one has necessarily signed up for, that someone decides to broadcast an email to.

Don't be so hard on them Rand. The analogy isn't perfect but I grok the meaning:

Don't post anything to a blog you wouldn't want broadcast to the world.

I would be very surprised if the gents speaking for google didn't know what spam is. Personally I am encouraged to see Google trusts their employees to blog with such a common sense guideline...

Nevermind. Maybe if I would have actually read the article I would have realized that Google just fired a blogger for what appears to be fairly mild criticism of the company.

I take back everything I said. Go get'em Rand!