I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, but if you create or enforce company policies, I have some advice for you to take under consideration. Now is the time to establish an e-policy on blogging if you haven't already done so. That doesn't mean that you should necessarily outlaw the practice; just set down some rules about acceptable blogging behavior. Once you've done that, get everyone to sign on the dotted line verifying that they have read and understood those rules and the ramifications of violating them.

The practice of blogging - keeping a journal of your activities or interests on the Internet - is growing in popularity. According to Technorati, there are more than 10 million blogs in existence today. Most of them tend to be fairly mundane and harmless, documenting the daily life of an individual, but occasionally you find one that is offensive or harmful to a company's reputation or business. When an employee enters the blogosphere with information about your company that you'd rather keep private, it's good to have a published policy handy to back up any actions you may need to take.

If you have found that one of your employees has already begun writing about your company in a blog and you're not happy with his take on corporate life, you may well be within your right to pull the plug. Few states have laws that prevent an employee from an "at will" dismissal if he acts against his employer's interests. But if you are going to release or discipline an employee over a blog, be gentle. You don't want to irritate this person to the point that he conceals his true identity and uses your "tightening of the reins" as food for fight. You might be surprised how easy it is to conceal your identity and blog safely as an employee. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has several tips on how to do that on its "How to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything Else)" page (http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Anonymity/blog-anonymously.php).

You also might consider the reason that an employee would feel the need to vent on a personal blog. Is your company's culture such that employees have no way of suggesting change? If an employee is unhappy for one reason or another, does he have a means to voice the reasons behind his unhappiness at work without fear of losing his job?

Linda Musthaler is a principal analyst with Essential Solutions Corporation.