Bloggers often find themselves having to deal with issues of privacy and liability. Stories of bloggers either hurting friends’ feelings or losing jobs because of materials published on their sites are becoming more frequent.

Fernanda Viégas, researcher at the MIT Media Lab, wrote about the findings from an online survey where 486 respondents answered questions about their blogging practices and their expectations of privacy and accountability for the entries they publish.

The survey suggests that social norms are starting to flourish in the blogosphere. Many bloggers reveal the names of companies and products when they blog about them, except if they work or have worked for them. More bloggers are becoming sensitive about revealing their friends’ names.

But for all of their carefulness, respondents still feel like they have no control over their readers.

When confronted with questions of defamation and legal liability, most believe they are liable for what they publish online, but didn’t feel concerned about the persistent nature of their postings nor did they believe someone would sue them for things they had written on their blogs. However, 35% of respondents said they had edited the content of entries they decided were too personal or “mean”.

The results reveal a certain naiveté in how most bloggers think about persistence and how it operates in networked environments such as the net.

As blogs become more pervasive and their audiences grow, the ever-persistent nature of entries and the direct link to defamation and liability are likely to become even more of a burning issue.

Via Robin Good.