I had a different post planned for today, but when I came across this story in my newsfeed I knew we needed to talk blogger safety instead.
You can click through the link, but the short version of the story is that an innocent mommy-blogger like you and me had her normal pictures scraped from her site and then placed next to X-rated photos on a porn site along with personal information about her like her name, Facebook page and the city she lives in.
Downright scary! You can read the full story of the mess she’s going through on the abc site linked above.
It’s certainly enough to make every mom-blogger think twice about those cute photos of herself and/or her kids that she puts online.
So a few safety reminders and tips:
1. Be very cautious what images you put on your blog – Any one can find them online, not just find them, but steal them. Personally, I don’t put any photos of my kids in diapers or their underwear on the blog. I find it adorable and innocent but that doesn’t mean that every person in the world will. I share those images with grandma, not with the internet.
2. Watermark – I used to watermark my images down in a corner somewhere, but then I realized that could easily be cropped out by anyone wanting to steal my photo, so I changed what I’m doing. Any photo that has a face in it, I now watermark through the face. No one can take my images without being obvious that they stole them. Now granted, they could still be taken, but it’s less likely. I tilt the text and fade it out a bit so it’s not too distracting cosmetically for my own use, but it’s certainly clear enough that a thief would be deterred from snagging the images. (I’m still working on going back and doing this to older images that I’ve uploaded to my blog, but you can see an example of what I’m talking about here.) Check out this post if you want to learn how to do your own non-distracting watermarks.
3. Who is – If you own your own domain this is something you should look into! Make sure that you pay a little extra to keep your registration information private. Otherwise, some one could do a “who is” search on your domain name and find information like your full name, address and phone number! Check with your domain name provider about how you can get this service added to your account if you don’t have it already. You should be able to add it on at any time.
4. Privacy – As bloggers, we frequently share our lives with the world, but consider carefully how much you want to be sharing. Head over to this post if you want to talk more about privacy in a blogger’s content.
Have your images ever been stolen? What steps do you take to protect yourself, your family and your blog?
WOW !!! This is shocking, it shouldn’t be with this day and age… My images are ‘mostly’ marked, but I don’t really mess with some of them I’m sharing your blog post on my fb this is CRAZY!!!
Thanks for sharing your great tips
Blessings,
Following from http://livinginhismercyandgrace.blogspot.com/
Wow. Thanks for pointing out that article. I have started taking a lot of those same steps (watermarking, whois etc.) but it’s still frightening. I’m more and more hesitant to put any pics of my children on… Actually- it’s the very reason I’ve focused and started a new blog/site.
I appreciate you pointing this out A LOT.
Georgia
This is the reason why I do not post family photos on the blog. When I do, I make sure the kids are not recognizable. Most of the time I just draw. My readers have learned to love my stick family over time (I hope!) LOL. 🙂
That’s an awesome idea!!!! 🙂
Thank you for sharing and pointing it out. Stories like these you don’t hear it or reminded. I like the tip of Whois ..that’s something we all bloggers should really look deep into it.
Yasmina
good article.
we all can use a bit more safety cautiousness when it comes to our identity these days.
Thank you for the reminder that we need to be so careful. Yikes! I also like some of the options you gave for sharing but not sharing too much. I would love a post on how to water mark someday. Thanks for sharing!
We will write one up very soon! 🙂
That’s terrifying! 🙁
That poor mom!!! How frightening……thank you for the information you shared. Gentle Joy
This is so scary! I have never posted pic’s of people unless you can’t tell who they are, and I will definitely continue to do so!
Thank you for sharing! I didn’t even know about needing the registration info protection but I just added it to my account!
yay!!! 🙂
Thank you for these tips. I’d love to see a watermarking tutorial!
Thanks for the info. I don’t have an easily-identifiable photo of myself on my blog, which I know can be a blogging no-no, but I’m concerned about putting photos with people on my blog.
I would love for you to post a watermarking tutorial.
Will be working on a tutorial for that this week! 🙂
Interesting – yes, I’d like a tutorial on watermarking the way you mentioned.
I will work on it 🙂
Hi Paula Thanks for always keeping us on our toes, I’d love to see a tutorial on using a watermark on images I post with faces. Thanks again for the knowledge!
I agree about being cautious about personal images. Yes, I would like to see your tutorial about watermarking. I recall an article about how a married woman’s picture was shown on a single’s dating site and she new nothing about this until it showed up one day on the internet.
So scary :/
Thanks for the warning! I would love to know how to watermark images
Thanks for this info. Although I do watermark the photos on my FB pages and blog, I will need to invest into keeping my domain info private.
Hiya! Quick question that’s entirely off topic. Do you know how to make your site mobile friendly?
My web site looks weird when browsing from my apple iphone.
I’m trying to find a template or plugin that might be able to correct this
problem. If you have any suggestions, please share.
Appreciate it!