If you a blog either as a personal journal or diary or as a business or both, the everything you write can potentially be seen by millions of people (how you make that happen is the focus of a dozen other articles) but it does raise issues of a legal nature that you be wise to pay attention to.
Firstly is a disclaimer that I am not a lawyer or professionally qualified in law at any point so all advice in this article should be checked with your own legal advisor before being acted upon.
Actually I didn't need to put that in the article but its the sort of disclaimer that you might want to consider putting on your own site.
It is a bit defensive and possibly unnecessary, but could be a good idea just to cover yourself anyway.
There two are areas that really stand out where you need to be really careful legally when blogging, one is defamation and the other is copyright.
When writing your blog what you put out to the cyber world is in your name and you are responsible for it.
If you really slag a person or company off then it is highly likely they might consider taking action against you in the same way they would if you had published same in a book or newspaper or spoken it on TV or radio.
Be careful what you say.
It's dead easy when sitting in front of your own computer to think its just you - it isn't, its the world The other huge area is copyright.
Remember that people own what they produce and have copyright on it.
That means what you produce as well, you have a right to own it.
If you reproduce some one else's material without their permission that is potentially stealing from them and potentially a breach of copyright as it is if some one does it to you.
Copyright law does vary from country to country but the principles remain the same.
There is normally some leeway in terms of allowing people to reproduce a small a mount of content say as a quote or reference, but if you're unsure check with the owner of the material involved.