Why is Microsoft blogging?
News.com has a short article describing some problems that users are having with the recently launched MSN Spaces, a blogging service from Microsoft. It turns out that MS is doing a couple of things that are upsetting their new bloggers:

1. Keyword filtering: MS is not allowing words that they deem inappropriate in the titles or URLs of the blogs. I don't have the list; however, I imagine "open source," "competition" and "Firefox" are on there.

2. Content policy: According to the News.com article, MS, unlike Blogger, "forces new users to grant Microsoft permission to 'use, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, modify, translate and reformat' their blog postings."

All of this makes me wonder why Microsoft got into blogging in the first place. They've never really been big on openess. In fact, they were one of the first companies to fire someone over a blog post (remember the contractor who photographed a palette of Apple computers being delivered to the MS campus?).

It also makes me wonder why anyone would continue to use their service once they discover these policies. After all, the whole point of blogging is being able to say whatever the (insert objectionable word from MS' filter here) you want.

So, Microsoft, leave the blogging to Blogger. You guys get back to work on XBOX Next.