Because there is no harm in asking, people have a chance to respond, to decide if they still mean what they said and to have this shifted to a new venue where its intent will be different.

If i say something to you in a public space do you have the right to quote me in your research even though you have put a notice somewhere else saying that you will, even though that notice is somewhere you might expect me to go and to see? The answer is no.

Now if you anonymize me, deidentify the information, then its probably again not legally wrong but i would argue ethically suspect- because you could ask but you didnt, and there is nothing difficult in the asking, you have my address- the blog, and a posting option, and the subject matter probably isnt distressing, and chances are if im cognitively astute enough to make a blog, then chances are i am cognitively capable of being classed grown up enough to know what im doing and that this is public…so Im probably a grownup and capable of giving consent…so where was the harm in asking?

Meantime I suggest there is risk in not asking. Will I participate if at any time someone can pounce on what i say and move it to new spaces for their own benefit and not necessarily for mine.

Meantime what i have read of internet and CCT mediated areas of interest (my own is in sms messaging) there are no hard fast rules, the best guidelines are 8-10 years old and are most certainly not universal. We are still finding out way/s.
My own study btw does not ask…but i have made many moves in justifying this:
The content is deidentified and anonymized and sometimes even altered to make it unidentifiable by any future means.
There is a significant need for knowing, and significant reasons for not asking at the time as it is at a time of distress…and there is risk in revisiting the trauma of the moment…and of not being able to physically trace the person,
i have treated this in a similar way to much health research where patient notes have been accessed.
My study has also interviewed young people and without parental consent either (the young person decides whether they want parental involvement or not or another significant person present if they agreed to an interview), and the subject matter of their relating to a counselling organization by text messaging might be highly sensitive or emotionally charged, and there are divergent views in the literature on what is and is not acceptable…
Some say never, EU countries particularly have stringent regard on this.

I just hope in my own study that i do not get a marker who decides what i have done is unethical and therefore a fail phd – either because i did not ask, as with the sms messaging…or in the one scenario where i do interview a child, i have not gained parental consent.

Meantime I take guidance from Simone de Beauvoir, ethics isnt about recipes, its about being thoughtful.

And as said by Magdalena Boberchxvi on Virtual Youth research: An exploration of methodologies and ethical dillemmas from a British Perspective p. 288-316 of Elizabeth Buchanan’s book: Buchanan, E. A. (2004). Readings in virtual research ethics. issues and controversies. Hershey: Information Science Publishing.

“One should neither let moral considerations, aimed at protecting young people, paralyze the research, nor should ethically difficult questions be avoided. ”

And again by Susan leigh Star and Ansel Strauss in m Star, S. L., & Strauss, A. (1999). Layers of silence, arenas of voice: The ecology of visible and invisible work Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 8, 9-30.
In trying to map the invisible, one risks destroying the positive aspects of invisibility – should the map
simply be marked, “here be dragons?”

And I would answer no. We need to learn how to relate to what’s difficult. Sometimes this involves trying things out rather than avoidance or labelling it as too hard.