The company I work for has installed new "spy-ware"

[Saphire]

to keep an eye on all employee's work habits. From how many key-strokes we type to what web-sites we visit and to read all in-coming and out-going e-mails and taking screen shots of what we are doing during the day. I know that they have every right to do this, but I still feel violated in some way. Does anyone else deal with this at their work place? How do you feel about it? Just curious.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. I have seen stuff on a computer at work, that if there was

due diligence at the other end, someone would be TOAST at this very moment. Be afraid people, be very afraid.

[Saphire]

9. that's the truth, apparently, some else in

another city had a thing for porn and gambling online. So, instead of getting rid of said employee, we all pay the price.

[Az]

2. Vassals should not question what their lords do to protect them

I used to be a network admin at the company I used to work for (before they shipped my job to India). And yeah, we can and did track such information. You are working on the companies computers. They belong to the company. You have no right to or expectation of privacy while using their equipment. At least legally speaking.

[Saphire]

6. I know, and I don't do anything at my work station that I would'nt

want anyone to see. Just work, work, work, but I still feel like I have the owner sitting in my lap all day.

[Saphire]

7. self delete

[nebenaube]

15. Yeah but...

I decided to resign after my boss tripped the firewall on my development machine... Screw them, if they don't trust me why should they profit from my efforts.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. think of it as practice. Wait til the NSA does the same thing.

soon.

[derby378]

4. Why wait? They're already getting lots of practice

I'm just waiting for EFF or someone to show us how to install blockers to prevent the NSA snoops from prying into our laptops.

[3waygeek]

8. What makes you think

they're not already doing it? :tinfoilhat:

[villager]

5. in the larger sense, do they have the "right?" What happened to

jobs being judged on employee performance (i.e. end results) rather than all this snoopy, spying prying shit?

[dysfunctional press]

27. of course they have the right.

they own the computators.

[BlooInBloo]

10. Um, who's computers are they?

[Catherine Vincent]

11. I know I really take chances logging into DU while at work.

My employer probably read everything I post. It's a large company...I hope they are not sensitive republicans.

[TahitiNut]

12. "Property rights" trump human rights.

How often have we heard this?
"If you live in MY house you'll follow MY rules!!"
"I have the right to keep people from doing that in MY home!"
"We don't allow our employees to smoke! Not even on their personal time! It costs us all!"
"I don't allow alcohol in MY taxi cab!"
"No children (or other animals) allowed in MY rental properties!"
"We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone (especially blacks)!"

We get what we model ... even in our personal lives.

Civil liberties are For Sale. "If you want an abortion then start your own country!" (Or have enough money to visit one where they're available.)

Money is "political speech"! Therefore, only the wealthy can speak and defend their own rights.

When we elevate "property rights" (entitlements, actually) above human rights and civil liberties, we've adopted the same socio-political corruptions of monarchies throughout history.

[Nikia]

13. The internet is only accessible on the computers in the owners' office

We can ask to use those computers for business but obviously whatever we do on it and how much time is spent is monitored.
We are required to save all of our computer work to the network which is accesible to the owners. I work for a smallish company. My employer can show up at any moment or be listening in on us from a nearby room. I assume no privacy while I am at work.

[Catherine Vincent]

14. I agree with all that.

But I always wonder why employees are given access to the "internets" in the first place, if it doesn't pertain to our job. Don't get me wrong, I am glad they did but I always wonder about that.

[michreject]

16. Makes ordering materials easier

The companies that supply materials to my(employer) company have their ordering process set up to accept on-line orders. We use our company acct. number when placing orders. Everything is easier.

Same process as ordering from a on-line business, such as Natchess.

[BluePatriot]

17. My company does not do this

but probably should, in a limited way. They have a "no internet except at lunch" policy...There are people at work who spend 3-4 hrs of their 8 hr day online. My boss gives me her busy work while she surfs MySpace. I know I would get creamed for visiting DU so much but seeing the abuses around me has made me indifferent. People would just revert to getting up and wandering around chatting or hanging out in the kitchen again, anyway, so maybe my company doesn't see the point as long as all the work gets done. Or, they should handle internet use this way -- if someone surfs all day give them more work. If they do it with no trouble they were just bored and needed something to do. No real harm there. If they still surf all day and the work piles up, then the INDIVIDUAL gets taken aside as a problem. I know they may track us soon and I would have a fit. I know we have no legal right to privacy but it's really about human dignity. Would the managers and higher-ups get tracked, too? Pffft. I plan to make the point, how much MORE productive have computers and technology made people in the workplace? Write off the minor abuses, take aside individual repeat offenders, and leave the rest of us alone if we get our work done.

:rant:

*edit* is 100 percent productivity even POSSIBLE or desirable? Isn't there some threshold where everyone would burn out if they never got to take a break? Maybe I'm set on "work to live" vs. "live to work."

[suziedemocrat]

37. There is no way I could be productive 8 hours a day/ 5 days a week.

I'm a computer programmer and if I am mentally tired, I simply can't do the work. Some days I am firing on all cylinders and work hard for even more than 8 hours straight. Other days, I can't seem to accomplish anything. Most days, I'd say 1/2 of the day is actually productive. And I accomplish much, much more than other people I have worked with. Most people won't admit it, but you can't be productive consistently 8 hours a day/5 days a week in a menial, mental job.

Also, I think working is like a track meet. You have sprinters who work super hard and then rest a long time. Then you have long-distance runners who pace themselves and rest less, but also don't work as hard when they are "on". Then, you might have the 880 people who are somewhere in the middle. A track coach knows who are the sprinters and who are the long distance runners and doesn't expect them to be something they are not. Managers need to recognize, and respect, their team members work styles as well. Ultimately, workers should be judged by RESULTS and not EFFORT.

I surf the web at work - a lot. I try to stay off controversial sites though - save DU for home.

Btw, Friday I was trying to look up the lyrics for the song "Crazy" and the site was blocked for profanity. I don't see any profanity in that song, maybe some of the links looked like profanity.

[BluePatriot]

38. You make some good points.

I probably should stay off DU at work, we don't have site tracking as of yet or even blocking as I make a point of hanging out with the IT folk (hell I even have the admin password) but they were talking about it, and I feel I used my arguments against it to some effect. I try to keep it to lunchtime, which is theoretically "our time" as long as the site isn't porn or something objectionable. If site traffic is monitored they will be looking for stuff like MySpace. The VP HATES MySpace. Plus, I caught the VP and IT contract guy looking at porn once (imagine me, the slightly mousy young lady-clerk going in to the open-door office to get forms signed, and them going "AAAAAAHHH!!!") so maybe I am off the hook, lol. Man. My workplace would make a good sitcom.

Still, if I ever want to work anywhere else, I need to improve my internet habits, if this thread is a typical indication.

(edit: typo)

[Matariki]

43. Good post

i work exactly the same way (i'm a web developer) I get more than my share of work done and always meet my deadlines. Hell sometimes I do other people's work. But I probably spend half my day reading DU ;-)

[Katherine Brengle]

18. Honestly, it's work, not private life. While I find it annoying, I don't oppose it.

I'm a stay at home mom, so I get a fair bit of time to poke around the net most days (especially the past couple of weeks with hubby on vacay and me recovering from surgery).

Most of the people I interact with regularly do so from work.

That means they are posting on forums instead of working.

Bad for productivity from an emloyer standpoint.

Understandable measure imo, even if it is annoying for employees.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

19. I own a small business, and I'm tempted to do this

There are a couple of reasons:

1) If I'm not hovering over their shoulders, there are some employees who spend hours browsing the internet instead of working. I don't pay my employees to surf the internet.
2) There are people that view inappropriate materials in areas that other employees can see. I don't want to get sued because someone is looking at porn at work.
3) I would like a way to monitor communications between customers and my employees. Think of it as quality control.

I don't see it as an invasion of privacy. I see it as a way to protect the 100's of thousands of dollars I have invested. Privacy rights go out the door when an employee is using my equipment on my dime.

[Katherine Brengle]

20. Exactly.

Someone should do a survey here on DU to see how many people are posting from work and not from home or another area of their private life.

My guess is the majority.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

21. It would also be interesting to see the volume of posts

during business hours versus non-business hours.

[Katherine Brengle]

24. DU is pretty busy around the clock, but we have a lot of time zones on here lol.

I have a couple of other boards I visit that go virtually dead after 5-7 pm and have little activity on the weekends.

[fortyfeetunder]

32. Lurk from work

No way would I post to DU from my work computer. I lurk only at work. I do it like a "flaming tobacco product" break, and perhaps at lunch.

[BluePatriot]

29. Suggestions?

As an employee at a small business, can I make a few suggestions before you go with all-out internet tracking? I know I shouldn't use the "fair" or "privacy" argument, so let me put it this way -- monitoring traffic 24/7 may not be cost effective for you. Also, having a more liberal Internet policy than larger companies can be something like an unofficial benefit, and keep you competitive when hiring. Behind the scenes, you can still be in control in several ways without seeming invasive.


"1) If I'm not hovering over their shoulders, there are some employees who spend hours browsing the internet instead of working. I don't pay my employees to surf the internet."

Do they have enough to do? Is there a way to track how much work they are completing without bringing the Internet in to it? You may be surprised. Employee A could be finishing 8 widgets a day and staying off the Internet, and employee B could be finishing 10 widgets and surfing the internet 2 hours. It is highly possible that, like at my workplace, the internet is not the core problem, distribution of workload is. Employee C that finishes 2 widgets and surfs 5 hours, you take aside, warn, discipline, fire. Don't ruin it for employee B. Maybe they could make an extra widget a day, but, in the end, you want to keep productive people like them around.

"2) There are people that view inappropriate materials in areas that other employees can see. I don't want to get sued because someone is looking at porn at work."

There are filters that can block out porn sites, etc. That is perfectly acceptable for computers in common areas and a lot cheaper than having a contract IT guy monitor internet traffic. A speech to your company about acceptable use followed by an appropriately worded error message from one of these filters if someone tries to surf something bad at work (you have been REPORTED!!!!11!!) is enough to make most people THINK they will get in trouble for trying anything funny with a minimum of effort on your part.

"3) I would like a way to monitor communications between customers and my employees. Think of it as quality control."

We have e-mail monitoring on Lotus Notes. All of our messages have a duplicate copy sent to a global account that high-ups can read and IT can access in case something's lost. Supervisors also have access to the email of their employees, managers to that of supervisors, etc. Actually, I think that becouse our email is controlled and monitored so well, the Internet issues have been put off as minor.

Hope I gave you some constructive things to think about. There are ways to monitor the use of your equipment and your employee productivity that make sense from a business perpective and still give your employees a bit of dignity (reducing your turnover, and keeping up morale)

BluePatriot (Employee B :) )

[EvolveOrConvolve]

39. Answers

Your suggestions are valid, and those are the things I have to take into consideration when implementing any monitoring policy.

1) I already have a pretty liberal policy about internet usage. I don't mind if an employee takes a short break to check their personal email or IM a friend. I'd just like to know the amount of time spent doing so and track that versus production. I think that employees knowing that I'm okay with a little personal internet usage, and that I'm tracking it to make sure that no abuse is taking place, is a good compromise.

2) I'm reluctant to put any content filters on the computers. The policy against any inappropriate material (porn, hate sites, etc.) is already in place and strictly enforced. But, it's something that probably won't be done while I'm around so I'd like a way to know that the activity is occurring and put an end to it immediately. Also, some filters go overboard in blocking sites (I've heard of some that block all political sites).

3) I already monitor email communication, but some communication is through IM and over our VoIP system. It's fairly expensive to monitor those types of communication, but I might do it simply because I want to know how my employees treat our customers when I'm not around.

Thanks for your suggestions BP - it's nice to get feedback from someone in a neutral position. Asking my employees might help a little, but employees tend to want to please, rather than bringing up criticisms directly.

:hi:

[BluePatriot]

44. Thanks!

2) may be why we don't have filters. We do have one shared computer in the warehouse that I think may be a good guinea pig to try filters on. It's a computer that's accessed by 10 guys and in view of customers.

I like giving feedback -- some managers know I'll always give it to them straight, but one recoils at my candor and tries to get me to "know my place in the chain of command" (bleh) I feel that at a small place there's no room for a style like that, everyone's part of the team in one way or another.

Probably, our policy is colored by our owner -- who usually has 15 minimized IE windows on his desktop when I wander in his office, haha.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

49. What is the best way to approach employees to ask

for constructive criticism? It's something that is very hard to get just right.

[BluePatriot]

50. *shrug*

Just make clear that any constructive criticism is welcome -- but if you only "say" so a lot of employees will still be nervous about being candid or not really see the point and be apathetic. That apprehension is normal if people think it affects their job or their status in the eyes of the boss, and frankly you will always have people working for you who probably don't care that much. But with the ones that do care, your actions matter. I guess employees have to know that if they make a comment it can cause real changes. Start small by implementing minor suggestions you get during causal interactions, or by picking up on cues ("say, i didn't know that was a problem. let's fix that. any ideas?") We like seeing action or knowing action will be taken. Then, ask for feedback on the actions you took, bounce back and forth, etc. After a while, we will trust you more by knowing you listen to our ideas and be more willing to come to you on major issues.

BluePatriot, consultant :)

[CabalPowered]

33. I also own a business and agree 100%

#1 is spot on. I personally just manage my access list at the router level for sites like youtube, myspace, etc.

#2 I make things like that severe offenses in the policy handbook and I've only fired one employee for porn.

#3 is a little more tricky. We use an IRC server for communication and I do monitor the logs from time to time, only when I suspect something is happening. And 9 times out of 10, my suspicions are correct and I avoid ugly situations. I also give empoloyees full disclosure of monitoring in the handbook, which I like to think prevents a lot of "knitting circle" gossip.

When labor is your largest cost, you take every caution to protect your investment.

[BluePatriot]

36. Oh yeah

no one uses any chat programs at work. Downloading anything is a no-no.

Hm. I never really considered it before but we do have a fair amount of controls on our work computers with significant leeway on internet use. I feel surprised. I know we have abuses but it seems like a good balance for our small company -- email monitoring, no downloads allowed (blocked as an admin function), no chat, spyware scans. No in house IT. I guess they are walking the line OK for now which makes me get so visceral about any further controls. Maybe they don't feel employees respect that they should keep internet to a minimum anymore. Actually, the younger crowd like myself just uses it a lot more throughout the day while working at the same time. Could be a generation gap issue. I guess my point in these things is that businesses should consider why internet use is a problem first. I have been given more work recently and am very happy to do it (I was severely underutilized) and the people who (likely) assumed I was a no good lazy internet surfer are pretty surprised. Now, I feel less guilty on the job, too. I do want to work at work, I just kept getting brushed off when asking around for more to do. One can then fall into a pattern of passing the time however they can.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

42. The generation gap issue is very important

In my experience, older folks don't abuse the internet benefits but are far less productive than younger workers. The problem is figuring out if the younger employees are more productive because of their age or if they've been trained differently. I do know that older workers are far more reliable.

I don't know why it is, but older people work harder but are less productive. Very strange.

[CabalPowered]

53. It's a matter of personal responsibility as you've eloquently illustrated

I know all my employees do some surfing during the day and I don't have a problem with it. I do it too. But it's those that are not able to discipline themselves and browse for hours at a time, that get into the biggest trouble. I used to work at HP and they were actually pretty lax about it. Except when it came to porn. The reaction was almost instantaneous.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

40. Labor is also my largest cost

It's a tricky act to balance the labor costs while keeping employees happy. I'm thinking of moving over to a standard IM or IRC for real-time communications. Any suggestions? Keep in mind that I run an IT company.

BTW, as business owners, I think we're definitely in the minority here on DU. I wish more liberals would become small business owners - it's a very powerful lobbying group that right now is dominated by R's.

[CabalPowered]

54. We use a vanilla IRC server right now

Nothing fancy and most of my employees had already used IRC at some point. I am evaluating MS's Live Communicator though, because it handles Polycom video conf equipment natively and I picked up a small set to use with some clients this year.

As far as being in the minority as business owners, there's no doubt about it. Your the second business owner I've chatted with on DU in some 4 years. And I take it your from Idaho? Are you in Boise? I'm in Twin Falls.

[Bill McBlueState]

22. how do they analyze all this?

I don't know how big your company is. But having a keystroke record, a website history, e-mail transcripts, and screen shots for every employee has to result in a huge pile of data. I don't see any way that all that could be monitored carefully.

That just makes it clear that it's an attempt to intimidate everyone, not to a actually monitor computer use. And I would imagine that intimidated employees are less productive than secure ones.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

23. It doesn't need to be analyzed all that heavily

Just the fact that employees know it's there stops them from inappropriate uses of the computers. I don't see it as intimidation to ask an employee to do the job they're getting paid to do.

[Bill McBlueState]

45. asking versus intimidating

"I don't see it as intimidation to ask an employee to do the job they're getting paid to do."

Of course not. But there's a line somewhere between requiring an employee to do their job and intimidating them into doing their job. A quick look at an employee's browsing history should reveal any pattern of internet abuse. Monitoring keystrokes, like the OP mentions, is over the top, IMO.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

48. Monitoring keystrokes is a monumental waste of time

Even for a small office, a weeks worth of keystrokes could result in 100's of thousands of worthless pieces of data.

[Crabby Appleton]

31. At my company, they sort the Internet access logs

a few different ways. They sort by site accessed to see if their are sites generating a lot of traffic and decide if the site should be blocked based on traffic volume or obvious non-business content; weatherbug is blocked for example, along with Playboy, etc.

They sort the log by username and see who is accessing the Internet the most and check to see if it is appropriate usage. A supervisor may also ask to see the activity of one of their staff.

[undeterred]

25. From an IT perspective

We have the tools to do this. The right to do this is based upon an agreement that every user is asked to read and sign when they join the company- so they are made aware that the computer and the network are company property.

The more people give out their company email address on the internet, the more spam we get on the email servers, and its a problem.

In actual practice- not all of our employees have internet access to begin with. Only those who could conceivably need the internet for a job purpose have access to it- that's still about 2/3. At our company we don't actually report anything or use the tools unless a manager asks us to- maybe they are concerned how employee X is spending his time so we check and see how much surfing is going on during business hours and how many personal emails are going in and out. I don't have a problem with that.

When I found that one of our servers used for user storage was filling up with a huge amount of MP3s and therefore running out of space- I reported it to my supervisor. The three were very good employees, two of whom were managers! But they were told not to use company storage for personal storage, given a week to move it off, and it was deleted.

The person who surfs most heavily in the company is an executive assistant- looks fishy, but they ask her to do a million things for her job and most of it is legit. Some of its personal, but if someone is doing a good job, the company isn't going to whine about it.

In IT we can pretty much see everything. When I see something that is personal because I am helping someone on their machine, I treat it as confidential. But if you correspond using a company account you need to be aware that it belongs to the company. Deleting personal email right away is a good idea.

[Crabby Appleton]

26. My company, a large multinational (22 countries) manufacturer

has a very strict no non-business related surfing policy and logs all traffic through the firewalls. I've seen people get fired for a first offense of surfing, and not even clearly inappropriate sites (like pornsites). At my facility only about 20% of the people even have Internet access. Many sites are blocked including Internet email sites like hotmail and gmail as that was the infection vector of a virus a few years ago.

I do understand the productivity issues for businesses however. I know someone that works elsewhere and posts all day long at another site. One day I counted 150 posts by him in a thread, and not short quips, but posts about the size of this one. This person usually posts around 100 comments per workday; hard to imagine how much time they devote to their actual job.

[tjwash]

35. Firing someone instead of just blocking the websites in the first place?

They must have a great bottom line.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

28. Lousy work environment. CV updating time. But that's just me. -nt

[MadHound]

30. An ever increasing amount workplace scrutiny is becoming the norm

And it ranges into all aspects of an employees life. Piss tests, cameras, spyware, the increasing trend of employers dictating employees actions off the clock, all of this and more are on the rise. Part of this is economic, trying to squeeze more productivity out of as few employees as possible or not having to pay as much for health insurance policies. Part of this is legal, to prevent lawsuits.

But what all of this disguises is employers increasing wish to act as little tin gods, working towards complete control of their employees' lives. Employers still long for the "good ol' days" back in the guilded age, before the rise of the unions. Back when employers owned the building their employees lived in, and were regualar unannounced visitors, checking up to see that there was no drinking, fornicating or card playing going on during the hours off the clock. Back when an employee could be fired for having an off the clock beer or off the clock affair. These employers thought that they were gods and acted accordingly.

This is what this current push is all about, turning back the clock to the point where once again we're all corporate slaves, on and off the clock, with our every action scrutinized. This current push started under Reagan with widespread drug testing. Now it is moving into other aspects of employees' lives, both on and off the clock. This has been done quite shrewdly, first attacking illegal activities such as smoking dope. After all, who could object to that? Next it has gone into on the clock computer useage, after all, we all agree that we should be working on company time, all the time. Now we're moving into dicier areas, such as requiring employees not to smoke on or off the clock. Sure, this is an intrusion into employees' home life, but the arguement is that the employer is paying for health insurance and corporations(paper constructs, remember that) have a right to spend as little cash as possible on their serfs, excuse me, employees. Besides, smoking is the becoming quite unfashionable these days, so there is little objection.

What's next? Probably alcohol and dietary regulations, for the same reasons as smoking. Employees will be forced into losing weight and foregoing alcohol for after all, both as problematic for a person's health, and the employer is paying the tab for health insurance. I can forsee company snooping on home computers also, after all, don't want to have any company pervs or pedophiles on board, legal issues. And this ball will continue to roll downhill, continuing to grow in size and momentum until before you know it, we've once again got employer's goons walking into our house at any hour of the day or night, checking to see if we're all living the good corporate life.

This has all come about through apathy, a declining economy, and the decline of unions. And it won't be reversed until people wake up, back their respective unions, and are willing to agitate for invigorated workers' rights. And frankly if this doesn't happen we will all once again be corporate slaves in the so called land of the free.

[tjwash]

34. They are not snooping for what you think. Your "work habits" are low priority.

Corporate espionage is an even bigger deal than government espionage now. Companies lose billions in R&D and market share because of it.

It's not unusual for large companies to hire professional snoops, that flood their competition with applicants that get hired. Countries like China have even boldly stated in the past that they will keep trying to steal technology from companies such as Intel and AMD and mass produce it on their own, on the cheap.

Believe me, workers and their cubicle habits are small potatoes...

[Beelzebud]

41. You're lucky to have a job where you can browse the internet...

Most people I know would be fired for playing around during work.

[Catherine Vincent]

46. I don't see a problem with it if it's during lunch break.

Or even a couple of breaks during your normal work hours. It was mandatory that every employee get 1 fifteen minutes break before lunch and after lunch. And besides, I know some smokers that take lots of breaks because they have to go take a puff.

[Odin2005]

47. Creeping corporate serfdom...

[orleans]

51. i'd be careful if i were you

and i wouldn't go on du at work--or any other political website

also, i've been reading what other posters here have said and if you are on company time then i would suggest that you stay "work-related"

if i had a company that depended on employees who needed to go online for whatever reason it would really piss me off that someone was logging onto some freeper site or even browsing bath & body works for the latest bubble bath. i certainly wouldn't be paying them to do personal shopping, or attend to their freeper political agenda.

in your position, i wouldn't do anything controversial that would potentially get me fired because i had a boss that prefers freeper websites to this one.

since they are being such assholes about their monitoring i would also recommend you cut down on personal emails

(sorry. but it's just my opinion. then i'd maybe look around for another place to work)

[Hekate]

52. It's been around a LONG time, and I hate the thought altho I know it's legal

Labor law keeps affirming an employer's right to the equipment, the "product", and your time while on the premises.

All ranks are affected, but the lowest ranks are affected the hardest because their work product is monitored so closely.

Airline employees and phone company employees customer calls are not only recorded but monitored for time spent with each caller.

Keystrokes are counted -- and this goes back to the early 1970s. My husband was a keypuncher at the time and says that all key-to-tape strokes were counted. He did 5 strokes per second and those who fell below that were fired.

When a friend of mine who is both a community peace activist and a clerk at the university started sending lots of email from her desk I warned her that she needed to be very, very careful not to infringe on her paid hours. I assume she was eventually counseled (a euphemism for warned) because I started getting much less email and only for brief amounts of time before 8 am and after 5 pm. They can still shut her down if they choose to, because it is their equipment, but so far so good.

As for spyware -- my brother is a management-level scientist and two employers ago he found out his boss had installed spyware on the company computers. The man wasn't subtle either: he'd approach my brother with questions like, "So how is your Mom now?" after an illness and a flurry of family emails. Then bro discovered that spyware had installed itself on his HOME computer. Now THAT's illegal.

I think this is all too creepy for words. I'm a big believer in the honor system and measuring end-product, not this moment-by-moment stuff.

Hekate

[donco6]

55. Well, if you went in the bathroom and turned on all the faucets,

They'd probably get mad, too. That's what happens when you let everyone use up bandwidth to download Napster and video and cruise porn sites. It's just a matter of doing business.

[seabeyond]

56. i have no problem with a company to have access to all stuff within the company walls

want something private, keep it at home. i do oppose a company reaching into private lives

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

57. If Anything, You've Violated Them If You Browse The Internet During Worktime Etc...

Most companies are pretty loose with their rules governing it, but regardless of how strictly some companies enforce such things it is still generally 100% within their rights to not condone personal business while on the clock. It's a no brainer actually.

I don't mean that harshly, just matter of factly. I've heard people complain about similar things before and it seems like many have forgotten that the personal usage to begin with was a perk and a luxury, not a right or expectation.