Rocks in my Dryer has a post on why she does not post her children’s photos on her blog. Please drop by and read it. Something happened very early in her blogging experience that tipped her off to an important frightening reality of the blogosphere. A blogging friend of hers also exsperience something that was absolutely horrible.

Password protected galleries is an alternative to placing pictures on your blog.

I don’t consider myself paranoid, but I do not post photos of my kids on my blog ( I have posted a couple, but it does not show their face) and I do not allow my kids to post photos of themselves on their blog.

A photo can be easily altered in a program such a Jasc Paint Shop or Adobe. These pictures then get exchange between pornographic rings. According to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children more than 20,000 images of child pornography are posted on the internet every week. That is both sad and alarming.

It is easy to say that this will never happen to me, but it has happen to bloggers.

I have had my picture too altered.

There are several admitted pedophiles who use both Blogger and Wordpress. In April 2006, Stacy L. Harp - a marriage and family therapist intern tried to convince Google to drop a website from its popular, free blog host blogspot that promotes “boy love.” Fox News interviewed Stacy concerning the fact that Google refuses to take down these pedophile blogs. She was unsuccessful in getting them removed despite her best efforts. If you would like to see the five minute long segmant it can be seen at “Stacy Discusses Pedophiles Using Google’s Blogger on Fox News.”
Law enforcement officers state that there is nothing that they can do about these boy/girl love blogs, because they’ve not broken any laws.

There is a discussion on the Flickr boards regarding the danger of posting photos of children online.

I think the decision for parents to post their children’s photos on their blog is a very personal one and I don’t judge those parents who do decide to post their children’s pictures. I have just decided not to.

Internet safety coach Suzanne Stanford has written an excellent article regarding teens posting photos on the net. The article can be read on bloggertalk.net.
Is posting children’s pictures online dangerous? I want to hear your opinion. Remember that there is no right or wrong answer here, so what are your thoughts?