After doing a little bit of searching, I found IBM, Yahoo, and Microsoft’s employee blogging policy. All three of the companies had similar guidelines. Employee’s are required to identify themselves and their position in their company. They cannot break the news on any events or release confidential information about partners, suppliers, or third-party entities. IBM, Yahoo, and Microsoft require employees to respect others and most importantly speak for yourself. Yahoo and IBM enforce disclaimer rules. Employees must include a disclaimer in all of their posts stating that their individual views do not represent the companies.

Yahoo specifically has a portion in their blogging guidelines about the press and media.

Press Inquiries
1. Blog postings may generate media coverage. If a member of the media contacts you about a Yahoo!-related blog posting or requests Yahoo! information of any kind, contact PR (pr-corp@yahoo-inc.com or 415-318-4120) You should also reach out for PR for clarification on whether specific information has been publicly disclosed before you blog about it.

IBM doesn’t want their employee’s bickering with other bloggers.

Don’t pick fights. When you see misrepresentations made about IBM in the media, by analysts or by other bloggers, you may certainly use your blog — or join someone else’s — to point that out. Always do so with respect and with the facts. Also, if you speak about a competitor, you must make sure that what you say is factual and that it does not disparage the competitor. You should avoid arguments. Brawls may earn traffic, but nobody wins in the end. Don’t try to settle scores or goad competitors or others into inflammatory debates. Here and in other areas of public discussion, make sure that what you are saying is factually correct.

I found all three of these guidelines were posted on employee blogs. After digging more into the Microsoft blogging policy, I found out that for quite awhile Microsoft didn’t really have any set rules or guidelines for blogging. It wasn’t until 2005 that Microsoft created a semi-informal policy. On the blog that I found the IBM policy, some other bloggers commented and made some recommendations to make the policy better. Blogger security was one of the reoccurring issues.

One thing I might suggest improving is the emphasis on avoiding personal, especially family, details. Identity theft, phishing, stalking, pervert predators, etc. make the revelation of private data more risky than it’s portrayed here.

Posted by vasper on May 17 2005, 06:55:00 PM EDT

From what I have gathered, here is my own version of blogging policies for the corporate world.

1. Identity your name and your position in the company.
2. Pay dues to discloser agreements.
3. Protect the interests of your suppliers, customers, partners and most importantly employer.
4. Don’t put any personal information on blogs.
5. Use company disclaimers to avoid misrepresentation and PR issues.
6. Don’t allow blogging to interfere with commitments at work.