Slashdot has a post about employee use and abuse of corporate Internet access, from Voco, an IT consultancy. While network abuse is not a new issue, (I worked on Acceptable Use Policies in 2000), some of the firm’s findings show the change in the size of Acceptable Use Policies (AUP) violations.
According to Voco’s data, for example, many of the pre-release downloads of the movie Hellboy: The Golden Army were over corporate networks. Voco points out that not only does this consume bandwidth meant for business; it also opens up corporate networks to spyware, adware, and other challenges for network security. And, of course, it could pose a legal issue for the company in question as well. “If investigators were tracking who was downloading, then the company address would turn up and the company would be the one facing legal implications,” Voco consultant Paul Hortop said in a statement.
The age-old challenge for firms is to balance staff “personal” and “corporate” use of the resources. Mr. Hortop asks, “Is it more time-efficient to let staff do their banking online than having them leave the office for half an hour?”
This is not a new issue, a CNN poll in 2005 found that 93% of all US employees admitted to using their employer’s Internet access for personal reasons as well as business ones, and 52% said they would rather give up coffee than their Internet connections at work.
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.