More and more personal blogs are going “private.” That means you need to be a pre-approved reader of that blog to have access to the website. Usually the blogger would send out an invitation to show you that you’ve been added to the “in” group, and you’d have to log into their blog with an ID and password to read it.

I think bloggers didn’t expect to be so easily searchable when they first start publishing their journals and thoughts online. When blogging was a relatively new thing, we just figured that we’d give out the address to people we wouldn’t mind keeping in touch with, and we can all stay updated on each other’s lives whenever we’re near an internet connection. I’m sure it was in the backs of everyone’s minds that maybe, just maybe, the address will be given out to someone in our extended network, and perhaps once in awhile, a stranger would stumble across our blog, read a passage or two, and then leave forevermore, and what’s the harm in that? So we create and personalize our sites with information easy to remember about us; we use our real names, cities, colleges, other identifying information. And then now, Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and other search engines have become insanely powerful that a few key words bring up our blogs to anyone who knows even the most basic things about us. My buddy James, whom I’d lost contact with for years, randomly found this site by googling “cindy vicky ucla,” Vicky being a childhood friend he knew I hung out with a lot and UCLA being my alma mater. Despite not using my last name anywhere on this site, I was still that trackable.

When I started blogging, one of the appealing things was, and remain, the widespread access of the general public to what I put out there. I love feedback, and I love to entertain. I love to contribute to other people’s thoughts, even if it’s a momentary “Hmm” by them as a new angle enters their perceptions. But then I’m a literary exhibitionist. That being said, I didn’t write much that would be devastating if specific people happened upon my blog. Except, maybe, if my parents found this blog. Mom, Dad, if you’re reading this, I’m still your happy little pristine daughter who doesn’t think too much and sees no evil — especially not in the form of certain things in certain men’s pants. Ew, boys! Gag! Ick! Puke! Boys are GROSS!

I’m not sure what to think about blogs going private. I think on one level, it defeats the purpose and the fun of a published web log. But on another level, I can understand the violation of being read by someone who’s your mortal enemy, who may use information against you, or if someone from your past whom you wish to have no contact with hunts down your blog, or if an ex’s new significant other suddenly becomes obsessed with you and fixates on your blog. Not all “surprise! remember me?” comments turn out like James. It’s no one’s fault, it’s just the nature of being on a WORLD-WIDE web.

To combat the accessibility, people have created either super-anonymous, code-named blogs that aren’t readily searchable, or have created a password-protected private blog, either in addition to a public blog or in place of one. Sometimes the public blog loses color and detail as people hesitate to put possibly incriminating things online.

It all just makes me a little sad, as much as I see the necessity in going private, publicly.