Workers using internet blogs and podcasts to talk about their employers increasingly face getting fired, several legal experts have warned. T

he risk of bloggers losing their jobs is rising rapidly as companies clamp down on leaks of commercially confidential information.

Few companies have written policies which include references to employees' blogs and podcasts, but said that this does not prevent employees from being sanctioned for telling the internet world what is on their minds or divulging company data.

The legal expert also warned blog authors that using company time or computers to update their sites may be in violation of company policy. And blogging at home about one's employer, even on personal time, can in some circumstances result losing your job.

But losing your job isn't the worst that could happen, and to better highlight that there's real proof: an Iranian blogger accused of spying and counter-revolutionary activities have been jailed for 14 years.

Newspaper editor Arash Sigarchi, whose blog criticised an Iranian crackdown on similar websites which has resulted in around 20 arrests, was himself arrested in January with charges of "espionage, insulting the founder of Iran's Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, and current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei", the BBC reports.

International pressure from groups such as the Committee to Protect Bloggers, which designated 22 February as "Free Mojtaba and Arash Day", is unlikely to gaing much ground against the revolutionary courts.