Blogging Anonymously Has A Price

Blogger supports anonymity - both in our ability to maintain and to own a blog anonymously, and our ability to comment on blogs anonymously. But this anonymity comes with a price.

I need to contact the owner of "xxxxxxx.blogspot.com", but there is no contact information and the blog is private.

or

How do I find out who left an anonymous comment on my blog?

or

I can't access my blog - I forgot the password and the email address doesn't exist any more.

or

I deleted my account, and they won't give it back to me!

All of these are queries by bloggers who do not understand the price of anonymity.

If Blogger is going to preserve our anonymity as blog owners, and as commenters (on blogs where anonymous comments are allowed), they cannot give out any information, to anybody, that might disclose our identity.

Blogger / Google must protect anonymity diligently, to be trusted.

If Blogger / Google starts disclosing identity information, to people who ask casually, nobody will be able to trust our - or their - intentions.

If you let people comment anonymously on your blog, people will comment with the expectation that you won't be requiring any personal information, other than demographic information that's obtained through a visitor log. If you don't like anonymous comments, you either disable anonymous comments - or you moderate comments, and discard what you don't like.

You - and only you - must maintain your anonymous, multiple identities.

If you setup a new Blogger account, and then create a new blog, and you include no personal details in either the account or the blog, you will wind up with a Blogger account that cannot be recovered, if you ever forget the account name / password - or if the account is ever locked for "suspicious" / "unusual" activity.

Don't demand that Blogger break someone's anonymity, without legal need.

If someone publishes a blog without a Profile gadget, or publishes a blog privately, without including contact information somewhere, don't expect to casually write to Blogger and demand contact information. And don't try claiming to own the blog in question, and that you forgot the password - or that you cannot remember the many different email addresses that you may have used.

Blogger cannot disclose the identity - including the email address - of the owner, if anonymity is to be preserved. This includes if your blog is deleted, and you don't know the owner account.

You may have to find out owner identity, on your own.

It's possible that you can identify a contact, on your own. If you require contact information provided by Google, you'll need legal assistance, and a court order.