The Golden Rule

Being in the financial services industry, I deal with privacy concerns every day.  There are so many rules and regulations surrounding most everything I do. 

• I can't send, nor would I, social security numbers, account numbers or anything similar in nature through email without having it encrypted.
• I can't speak to a husband about his wife's accounts unless I have her permission.
• If I mention my company's name on my facebook page or Twitter, I have to have a disclaimer stating that the opinions are mine, and not that of the company. 
• I can't let one client know another person is a client of mine, unless I get his authorization first. 
• I can't even tell one person if the friend of theirs they referred to me became a client without the other person's permission first.

There are a lot of rules to follow and they all have strict penalties for failing to adhere to them.  Blogging does not have any such rules.  I can do almost anything I want.  But I don't, and neither does Julia in her blog. 

When she first started blogging, we discussed what was fair game and what was not.  We've stuck to those rules for anything and everything we've written whether it's for her blog, my blog, or my upcoming book.

We agreed:

1. Not to post any naked or semi-naked pictures.  That goes for the girls as well. 
2. Not to post anything that would indicate when one or both of us were out of town.
3. Not to post anything if either of us is uncomfortable with the content.   
4. Not to publicly bash any person or organization.  

I can't think of one instance where either of us have failed to live up to our end of the bargain, and I don't expect it to happen. 

While it may seem as though our lives are an open book, they aren't.  Most of the truly intimate details of our life are kept between us.  If they're written down, it's in pen, in the journals we keep for the girls. 

  

I still see the occasional blog post or facebook update of a little naked one running around, the moaning about how one spouse mistreated the other, or how one's friend has wronged them.  I usually don't comment on them, because people are free to do what they want - even if I don't agree with it.

For us, we try to keep one thing in mind - once you hit submit it's out there, and will continue to be out there.  You can't take it back. 

Sure, you can attempt to delete it, but if one person has seen it, or if technology doesn't work exactly as it should, the damage is done.

Why risk it?