Though it's human nature to complain about work, employees who air their complaints on the Web might want to think twice.

A recent California state appellate court ruling confirms the conventional wisdom that once someone posts something personal to the Internet, it's public information. Cynthia Moreno found that out the hard way after publishing an essay about her hometown on her MySpace blog. Six days after detailing the myriad qualities that repulsed her about Coalinga, Calif., Moreno had second thoughts and removed the text from the site. But Roger Campbell, the principal of Coalinga High School, had already copied the essay.

Campbell submitted Moreno's “An Ode to Coalinga” to the local newspaper, the Coalinga Record, which published it in the “Letters to the Editor” section. Though Moreno, a college student, no longer lived in Coalinga, her parents and sister did–and they began to suffer the consequences of the ode's publication. The family received death threats. Someone fired a gun at their home. They were forced to flee the town, closing a 20-year-old, family-owned business.