Six Apart, which is the movable type, type pad blog platforms, bought Live Journal (which is another blog platform) and the blogosphere is in a small dither.

Live Journal has been around since 1999 and is extremely popular with teens and young people.

According to this article it was a family run business.
Now that it has been bought by what some of the over 5 million users perceive as a corporation, privacy issues are coming up.

Six Apart of San Mateo, Calif., announced the purchase late yesterday amid rampant rumours and privacy concerns related to the deal.

Many of Portland, Ore.-based Livejournal’s approximately 6.5 million users wondered whether their private writings were included in the price of the deal.

“It seems like an overnight decision,” said former Livejournal volunteer Sandra Gilraine of Toronto. “I’m afraid it might introduce online advertisements, or stricter rules. I’d hate to see Livejournal exploited.”

I hate to see any idea and platform exploited too. The thing is - it was - and is - a ‘live’ journal. As private as it feels to put ones thought’s into a computer, or be part of a small online community, the second you hit that publish button, you are live. It isn’t private anymore. The spirit of volunteerism that made Live Journal, goes the way of most things online.

Whether we like it or not, commerce has discovered blogs. Blogs are being seen as a cash cow. For those of us who don’t want advertising, odd rules and changes in service, we can hope there will always be developers out there that eschew the haste to make money off users. And vice versa - for there are a few million bloggers that would be quite happy to make that money.

Thing is, deleting a blog and it’s archives may make one feel safer. But it is the world wide web, and out there in some search engine somewhere, or linked on another blog, are old words that can come back to haunt us.