Blogetry.com was a place you could set up a blog for free.
Unfortunately, for 73,000 bloggers, that “free” disappeared one day when Blogetry’s web host closed every blog. The reason? Although the details are still murky, it seems that the U.S. government stepped in and forced the closure.
As both a blogger and a Web lawyer, I find it scary to think of the government shutting down so many blogs at once. Some believe the shutdown was because some blogs were illegally sharing copyrighted content. That remains to be seen.
What is clear is that there is no free lunch.
If you have a blog, consider using paid hosting with your own domain rather than using some free hosting service. Make regular backups so you can port the blog elsewhere in case of a shutdown.
And make sure your domain name is registered somewhere different than your hosting company. If your domain registrar and host are the same, you’ll catch hell trying to point the domain name to a new host when setting up your blog at a new location.
