The bitch cheated on you!

The bastard ran off with another woman!

You have been betrayed, belittled, humiliated, hurt and heartlessly rejected by the person you loved and whom you thought loved you!!

But, you have a blog. [Cue: Peel of thunder and much satanic laughter]

Yes, the instrument of revenge is at hand. Because you have a blog, you no longer have to be that helpless victim, bobbing along haplessly on the waves of life's cruel sea. With a blog, you can fight back. With a blog, you can enjoy, nay luxuriate, in the therapeutic indulgence of a long, drawn out and deeply malicious campaign of righteous retribution.

Or so you may think.

It is certainly what this chap must have thought:

It seems that one of the most dangerous things you can do in a relationship is make a video of yourself and your loved one getting jiggy with it. It will almost certainly come back to haunt you; a fact which one Clara Whitehouse has learned the hard way...

Her ex, Paul Clarke, clearly enraged that she had ditched him for another, got his revenge by posting just such a video online, for all the world to see.

Cruel or what?

He followed this up by making sure as many people as possible were aware of the site - by handling out flyers advertising it at Clara's 21st birthday party. He also had them sent to her workplace and delivered to her neighbours.

Ouch! That has got to hurt.

Devilishly devious, yes, but also rather self-defeating as Paul ended up in the dock and has admitted harassment.

And that has got to hurt even more.

Now, for the quibblesome amongst you, the tool of payback here was a website not a blog but the same principles will apply and, while I am not aware of any such cases involving blogs, it is a pretty well-established precedent that someone can 'harrass' someone else by means of a 'hate' campaign involving websites, chatrooms and e-mails. I see no reason why blogs could (or will) be excepted.

And far be it from me to put ideas into the prosecutors head but it is my view that the enraged Mr. Clark also infringed the Data Protection legislation by publishing the material without permission (not that he was likely to get permission even if he was minded to request it). Post 'Lindqvist', it is clear that publishing personal information (let alone video material showing the subject in flagrante delicto) on-line without prior consent is an offence under the Data Protection Act.

Revenge may be sweet but when it bites you on the backside then it is bitter indeed. The upside of blogging is that your voice is being heard but the complementary downside is that you take the fall when you get it wrong.

Blogs are a powerful weapon. Just make sure that you do not shoot yourself in the foot.

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