According to research company Gartner, Inc., the number of individuals engaged in blogging is predicted to reach one hundred million in 2007. Blogging, the act of posting an online chronicle, has gained increasing popularity over the past few years and has also made its way into the workplace. Companies whose employees engage in blogging activities may face significant legal risks as a result. Such risks include the disclosure of company proprietary or sensitive information through blogging, as well as potential claims of defamation or copyright infringement arising from an employee's blog content. One step that a company can take to minimize these risks is to adopt and enforce a company policy prohibiting blogging activities from taking place on or using the company's network. Such a prohibition is a natural extension of a company's acceptable network use policy, which should already include regulation of employee use of e-mail and Internet access. Even those companies with blogging policies may still be at risk in the event that an employee posts inappropriate content, such as company trade secrets, on a personal blog outside of the company's network. Adopting and enforcing appropriate employee non-disclosure policies can help minimize this risk. For an article with more information on Gartner's 2007 predictions: Click here.