PR Differently points to a news article on people getting "fired for blogging". Here's the thing though - the people covered weren't fired for blogging per se - they were blogged for either:

• Airing "dirty laundry" in public
• Discussing sensitive corporate material in public
• Embarrassing the company in public

Well gee, get me a cluestick for these folks - those acts will get you washed and waxed if they become public. You think a signed letter to the editor doing any of the above would be looked at kindly by management? What makes you think that blogging will be any different? Here's one of the cluebots they talked to, a guy named Paul Whitney:

Like a growing number of employees, Peter Whitney decided to launch a blog on the Internet to chronicle his life, his friends and his job at a division of Wells Fargo.

Then he began taking jabs at a few people he worked with.

His blog, gravityspike.blogspot.com, did find an audience: his bosses. In August 2004, the 27-year-old was fired from his job handling mail and the front desk, he says, after managers learned of his Web log, or blog.

Well. Insulting co-workers in a public forum, and he's shocked that there were consequences. Here's his reaction:

"Right now, it's too gray. There needs to be clearer guidelines," says Whitney, who has found another job. "Some people go to a bar and complain about workers, I decided to do it online. Some people say I deserve what happened, but it was really harsh. It was unfair."

Harsh and unfair? What did he think was going to happen? Say you did exactly what he did, but in a loud voice in the employee cafeteria. You think maybe people might have been irked by that? A blog is is the quintessential "loud voice" - sooner or later, people are going to notice what you are saying. For instance, here's the sort of thing that likely got noticed. If you make personal attacks on co-workers, identifying yourself and the firm in question, it shouldn't be a huge surprise when the pink slip arrives.