Online Public Relations Thoughts

Two days ago, I wrote about the problem of anonymous bloggers. That is just part of the headache facing corporate communicators trying to defend companies. This wonderful invention for the US Navy is going to make anonymous e-mail a hazard. I know that the Electronic Freedom Foundation finds it wonderful, but there are limits to privacy, especially when someone uses it for evil actions. What happens when someone starts sending personal threats to individuals or bomb threats unless a company pays a few million bucks for the bomber to go away? There appears to be some thinking about this, but not enough.

It is nice to be romantic about people and their essential goodness, but it doesn't take long in news or PR to realize that there are individuals with bad intentions, and they are many.

I wish everyone luck on developing this system, but I can hear the complaints now.