Man gets sacked for blogging

Scottish bookseller Joe Gordon once used his blog to let off steam after a hard day's work behind the counter.

But in January, his online diary got him into trouble after he complained about his bosses to the cyberworld and ended up getting fired.

Gordon had worked for an Edinburgh branch of Waterstone's bookstore for 11 years and lost his job after calling his boss "evil."

Though he never named his boss or the company, he did hint at its identity, which was enough for Waterstone's to take action.

Gordon was the first person in the UK to be sacked for blogging, raising questions about an employee's rights to be a private citizen in cyberspace versus an employer's right to protect its reputation.

Gordon still writes a blog, and he was snapped up to work at a rival book company who liked his writing.

"Until now, people have thought freedom of speech was a legal or government thing. Now we're waking up to the fact that a bigger threat to people may come from companies, so you have to think, will my boss read what I do?" Gordon said.

Computer programmers say the only way to avoid censorship in any country is to operate anonymously.

California-based company Anonymizer specializes in developing technology that helps people protect their online identity.

CEO Lance Cottrell, who set up the company 10 years ago, said that automatic privacy on the Internet was a common misconception.

"There's this perception of privacy on the Internet. You're sitting at home in your pajamas in front of the computer, you feel anonymous. But the reality is that it's probably the least anonymous time you spend all day," he said.

This is because every computer has an Internet Protocol (IP) address that other computers can see — his company's technology blocks the identification of that address.

"Just like you have caller ID, we can have caller ID blocking on the Internet, so if you are out there visiting Web sites they don't know who you are," Cottrell said.

However, Anonymizer is selective about who gets access to its service.

"Consumers are actually double or triple vetted before they have access to the service," he said.

For some, that doesn't provide enough cover.

Ian Clarke invented Freenet, software that makes one practically invisible on the Web.

Freenet is decentralized, which means there is no central server and no one knows who's using it so it can not be shut down. It also opens the service up to abuse, potentially by pedophiles, terrorists and other criminals.