Don’t try to sanitize input – escape output
You should do both.  Sanitize your inputs so that it can be safely stored in your data store, and then sanitize your output so it can be safely displayed.We did this at reddit.  We had basic SQL sanitization on the way in, and then a full pass on the way back to the user.  The advantage this gave us is that when someone discovered a new way to hack our sanitization, all we had to do was update the output filter and everything was magically safe.We didn't have to do full database scans to find all the bad data and change it.Edit:  Apparently I shouldn't have simplified "paramaterazation of SQL" as "sanitize your input".  I used the more generic term since I was talking about any kind of data store.  But yes, it was of course parameterized.