Blogging Minister Calls For Probe Into Blogspot Blogs

Saw this piece of news on the Malaysian News Agency.

It concerns a certain minister in Malaysia whom anonymous bloggers decided to take a potshot at - in this case, two potshots. According to the story, reproduced here:

Ali Rustam Wants Police To Investigate False Blog

June 15, 2008 17:22 PM

MELAKA, June 15 (Bernama) -- Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam wants the police and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to take appropriate action against those who had created false blogs in his name.

He said the false blogs are http://mohamadalirustam.blogspot.com and http://mohdalirustam2.blogspot.com.

"My actual blog is www.mohdalirustam.com," he told reporters here Sunday.

More here

This is certainly an interesting development for blogging. Eversince the March 8 elections, practically everyone who can pronounce and spell B-L-O-G-G-I-N-G wants to blog.

And anyone who blogs, do so at Blogger or Blogspot, probably thinking that doing so qualifies them the title 'blogger', little knowing that the common noun has also now become a proper noun and possibly a trademarked brand name.

How the police will be able to track down the owners of the 'fake' blogs will be interesting to watch although it will not be very difficult given the cooperative nature of Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC). However, trying to get Blogspot to reveal the identities of the bloggers might be a tad tough.


The real blog.