If You Cannot Prove Ownership Of Your Blogger Account, Your Next Step May Involve Court Action

We've explored the issues of Blogger account and blog recovery policy, repeatedly.

We've mentioned the business concerns, the personal support issues, the strategic hacking possibilities, and even the personal implications of prevention.

With all of the warnings, we continue to see evidence of blog owners who just don't understand the message, posting in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.

I started a blog under an alias, to be able to post anonymously, and can't remember the login details or the e-mail recovery. How can I regain access to my blog?

Last year, Blogger Support offered the "final" word about account recovery assistance, in the forum.

Due to the sensitive nature of these issues, we won't be able to troubleshoot your issue in this public forum.

Even giving that advice, some blog owners still insist that Google is not cooperating, in refusing to restore access to Blogger accounts and blogs, to people who cannot prove their right to ownership.

The policy on ownership recovery, provided by Blogger, is quite simple. Anybody requiring recovery has to prove their right to a given Blogger account or blog, using the tools provided.

Because Google doesn't ask for much personal information when you sign up for an account, we don't have many ways to verify that you own an account.

Blogger / Google provide two automated recovery tools - and that is the limit of their involvement. Every Blogger blog owner, who actively publishes a blog, and who wants to keep their blog under their control, needs to appreciate this limit - this is how Blogger and Google prevents devious hijacking of our blogs.

For those blog owners who truly need - and deserve - control of their lost blogs, there is one final recourse. Any owner, who cannot use the Blogger / Google automated tools, are entitled to take their concerns outside Google, and have their identity certified by the courts. Start by hiring a lawyer, take the matter to a judge, and get a properly issued court order. Then, serve the court order, properly, to Google.

Let's let the courts assume responsibility of deciding who is a worthy blog owner - and who is potentially a blog thief or hacker.