Dear fellow bloggers, I have been blogging around 4.5 years now (probably making me like a grandfather in blogging age), making my first blog post back in December of 2006. I'm not modest in saying that my Illinois Real Estate Blog is pretty cool. Well, at least I think it is. I've had people find me from my blog. I've had people remark that they think my blog is nice. But in the 4.5 years I've had my blog I can honestly say this has never happened to me. When I started my blog back in 2006 I always knew something like this would eventually happen - it was just a question of when.
Today I received my first request to remove something written in my blog. (Did you think this post was going another dirction? Ah well...read on - this topic is an interesting one anyways.)
Now, there have been times I've been frustrated in this business. I've even had the desire to run to my blog and vanquish the spectre of injustice with my mighty pen....er.....keyboard. But I never have. My policy has been, "always be positive". I always saw my blog as a way to provide information and news - not to "out" some piece of juicy information or generate controversy.
That's why I'm extra suprised that the first request I received was from a company that I personally praised for doing a good job in the community.
!!??
Yes, you read that right. I'm not going to go into details but I received a short, terse email requesting that I remove all references to the individual's company from my blog. Now I can understand wanting some piece of intellectual property removed if I decided to copy someone's stuff or I can understand some company wanting references removed if I slammed them online. But I just don't get why a tiny company flying under the radar would get all huffy when I mentioned them and praised them on my blog.
In any case, I knew this was coming - and so should you. If you blog enough, eventually you're going to get one of these requests. I've heard some funny stories - people upset because the corner of their home was in some photo the agent took and put up online. It's interesting that more people haven't heard of the Streisand Effect. Now, I'm all for privacy rights but the phrase "mountain out of a molehill" comes to mind. Not to mention that blogs do enjoy many freedoms that other media outlets enjoy.
So what did I do? I wrote an e-mail back to the person thanking them for contacting me and telling them I would remove all mention of thier company on my blog and refrain for mentioning it ever again. Then I promptly removed the reference. I mean, if someone can't understand the benefit of good press and a word-of-mouth referral, they deserve the penalty of obscurity. What would you do?
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