Employees to be billed for personal Net use?

[liberal N proud]

Employees who surf the Net at work could receive a bill each month for the cost of borrowed bandwidth and wasted time if Australia-based Exinda Networks' URL- and bandwidth-monitoring system takes off.

Exinda Networks says it's developed a system that allows a company to monitor exactly which Web sites are visited by each employee and how much bandwidth has been used--in terms of a cash loss to the employer.

http://msn.com.com/2100-9588_22-5558818.html?part=msn&subj=ns_5558818&tag=msn_home>1=6084

There goes my early morning and lunch hour. If they think I am going to surf work related shit on my lunch hour they are full of shit.

[benburch]

1. This will become so unpopular...

that people will prefer employers who don't do this.

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. Maybe he should eat lunch during his lunch hour?

Sorry has an employer, I have no obligation to provide my employees with free internet service for their personal use. I personally have wasted uncountable hours, scrubbing employees computers of worms and viruses because of their 'personal' use of the internet, despite company rules that prohibit such use.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. What kind of security systems do you have in place there?

Frankly, blaming the viruses and worms on their surfing is disengenuous and inaccurate. Such things come in in email and, yes, are out there trying to install themselves, over the net, automagically. Really.

I think you are blaming the results of bad network security on your employees.

Here's one hot tip: Do you allow instant messaging? Do you use AIM? Get rid of it. Use GAIM instead. AIM's push channels have been used to push malware and trojans onto machines. It also writes a .tmp file for every session and does not erase them, hence it crufts up the HD. Use GAIM, it is tons more secure, complete with encrypted session caabilities.

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. After getting burnt

I finally invested in a very good virus protection program that costs a far bit of money every year to keep the licenses up to date.

I never allowed instant messaging but over and over I would find certain employees would reinstall it on their computers. Then they claim they don't know how it got there and that it just keeps popping up, yeah right.

Despite all this, I still got some worm that attacked my server and most of the desktops in the office. Again I got stuck spending hundreds of dollars in tech time to get rid of the darn thing.

[qazplm]

10. seems to me its up to the company

there really is no "right" to surf the internet at work.

Now I as an employee can then seek another company that allows some surfing, but there is nothing disingenuous about those companies saying that but for the unauthorized surfing, I wouldnt have viruses et al on my computers.

i dont know who else you blame besides the employees on this one. If there is a clear policy that says no unauthorized surfing and they violate it then why arent they the ones to blame a majority of the time?

Now having said ALL of the above, I think what employers dont recognize is that giving some freedom to do surfing over lunch or on breaks will probably increase productivity. People need breaks. We tell them to take 10 minutes off for every hour of studying, why is it any different for work?

A good employer would probably find some cheap but ingeneuous ways to occupy their employees "rest time" in such a way as to recharge their batteries in a manner an employer deems acceptable.

For example, how about once an hour if one of the managers comes out and does five minutes of stand up comedy?

Or there is some sort of game everyone plays once in the morning and once in the evening for five minutes, and the winners get off 30 minutes early.

Things that break the monotony, get the employees in a good mood and "cost" very little would I think in theory at least increase productivity overall if done right (and I realize my suggestions may not be the right way but are used as an example of the types of things you could do)

[hlthe2b]

4. I can not for the life of me know where one draws the line...

My employer links to multiple internet news sources (all the area and regional newspapers, BBC, CNN, MSNBC, etc., etc) on their web page, including a clipping service for local news stories that have ramifications for what we do. So if I spend time on these sites are they going to determine whether I clicked on a "valid" story or not? If I jump to search the web for "ways to control" clutter (mainly because my home is awash in it, but also because of tips I might learn to control the perpetual "paper clutter" at work) is this wrong? If I click the employee link to compare health insurance policies then go to my own plan link and spend time searching and comparing providers, trying to find out what prescription meds are on their 3-tiered formulary and how much I'll pay for co-pay, is that wrong? If it is, then why do they provide these links on their intranet home page?

I don't do any politically oriented surfing, including DU at work, because I know this could easily be a flag in this day and age. (and it is hard to break one of the habit of pulling up DU or others). But so many areas of "news" are really applicable to any semi-intelligent workplace (and mine in particular), I have a hard time considering that personal use.

This is a gray-zone area in my mind unless someone is surfing porn sites or something similar on work time and clearly NOT performing at all. I think to implement such a plan for employees who do perform is a really bad idea, no matter how much perceived savings to the employer. I think they would want to consider cost of employeee turnover and new employee training. Somehow any savings probably melt away.

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. It depends on your job

for most jobs it's pretty easy to tell the difference between work related and personal use.

As an employer, I really don't understand why I shouldn't expect people to 'work' while they are on the clock. I don't care what you do with your personal time, as long as you don't do it on my dime and my equipment.

[hlthe2b]

8. I don't disagre with your premise... but I've seen many state/local

governments react reflexively, putting on blocking software wlly nilly, only to find they have blocked their health agencies and universities from CDC and other medical websites and access to medical journals, on anything pertaining to breast or testicular cancer, sexually transmitted disease, etc, etc. For programmers sitting in a central administrative office, this probably seems a reasonable approach at restriction! I know of one, who was so scared of "kiddie porn," that their filters prevented almost any access to sites with the word "children" in them. So, they blocked their own social services website and access to day care regulations, etc., etc.!

[liberal N proud]

7. My employer has a program in place that filters unacceptable

content.
By that it looks for anything sexual n nature and blocks the site.
The program is called Websense and discourage the use of video and radio broadcast.
But so far they have allowed personal use of the Internet during lunch hours, before and after work.

[bitchkitty]

9. One word: laptop! n/t