The internet is a public domain.

We have focused for a while now on how the diminishing borders between the user as a professional and as a private person have caused B2B and B2C to converge into the user-centered philosophy of B2U. Businesses must communicate, and deliver, to real users. No matter which arenas they meet them in.

But the flip side of this, and something that has become increasingly relevant through the proliferation of microblogging and other social media channeled communication, is the fact that the sender, the communicator, also cannot expect that his recipients differentiate between him as a professional and as a private person. That means that everything uttered on the net is a public statement, representing you, the place you work and other organizations you are connected to.

Things on the internet are not written – they are published.

Everything that is said in a seemingly private forum must, in the age of cut and paste – and screen dumps, be written in such a way that it can stand the light of publicity. Of course you could operate under a different internet persona, but we see that people have to disclose a real identity in order to be taken seriously. And people communicate increasingly in social networks, and less in the faceless forums. Networked log-on services like Facebook Connect and Google will accelerate this development.

The consequence of this, and to build further on the B2U terminology, is that we end up with something like U2U: communication happens peer-to-peer, between users organized in networks and organizations, interacting and communicating through lots of different channels. And it all happens in what is actually a public domain.

Businesses need to understand this, as the #warnerfail case showed, employees who think that the net can be private are loose cannons on deck – a PR catastrophe waiting to happen. Organizations should inform and train their employees to understand the potential consequences and benefits of this. This is the cheap way to reduce reputation risk.

Because the fact that the net is a public place has not yet dawned on everyone.