I know that many of us don’t feel comfortable using our children’s real names, or posting photos of them on your sites. But if you’re really worried about something bad happening to your family because of your blog, this is the number one issue that I think you need to take care of.

If you have your own domain (i.e., thisismyblog.com instead of thisismyblog.typepad.com), get private registration. It costs extra, but I think it’s worth it.

What is private registration and why would I want to pay extra for it?

Private registration means that your name and address (which you supplied when you registered your domain) will be kept private from anyone who searches for them. If you don’t use private registration, anyone can find your name and address if they have your domain name.

I know you’re wondering how they do this. It’s called a whois look up (pron. “who is”). Whois.net is just one of dozens of sites where you can look up domain registration info.

When I look up, for example, Marketing Pilgrim, the Internet marketing news blog I work for, I am directed to a page where I can find this (his old office address):

Registrant:
Andy Beal
6512 Six Forks Road
Suite 502B
Raleigh, North Carolina 27615
United States

This goes on to add his telephone number.

Now, if I look up my domain, I get:

Registrant:
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States

(Note that the fact that this company is located on Hayden Road has nothing to do with my son’s name. Eerie, though, don’t you think?)

Through my domain registrar, private registration costs about $7 a year. I don’t think that’s too much to pay for that modicum of privacy, do you?

I don’t personally think I’d trust a blog about parenting if the blogger revealed the names of their children! I’d think that blogger was exploitative. But someone else might think the opposite — that blabbing about your kids to virtual strangers is the only way to earn trust and develop a connection.

From time to time, I do regret using my son’s real name on my blog. (Or at least I’ve let you all think it’s his real name, Mwahahaha!) On the other hand, I’m confused as to why this would be “exploitative” (that would be pretentious-ese for ‘exploitive’). I once called my son by his “real name” in front of a complete stranger. That’s gotta break some law, right?

On the other hand, calling my son by his name has nothing to do with earning trust and developing a connection with you guys (no offense). I pretty much do it because when I started blogging it was all about letting my family know what Hayden was up to. But really, if you think about it, isn’t “blabbing about your kids” at the heart of almost every mom blog?

In fact, if I don’t see some mention of a blogger’s children somewhere, whether real names, pseudonyms or the stupidest nicknames I’ve ever heard, I’m pretty unlikely to trust his/her parenting advice. We all remember what it was like to have no kids and all the answers.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. And do you think that this:

is less exploitive than this?

I obscured his identity…