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[Agent Smiley <skywalker@disinfo.net>]

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--- In utanews@egroups.com, Don Carnage <don_carnage@m...> wrote:

...And Why You May Not Want To 
 
By Jesse Berst
ZDNN 
 
Aug 21  Spying on employees will be a half-billion dollar industry by
2004. But that may not be the best thing for business. 
 
        Companies that want to spy on employees Internet usage already
have an array of tools. Research firm IDC predicts that in four
years, 
the
industry will generate $562 million in revenue. Click for more. 
       But employers fixated on monitoring employees may be wasting 
time
and killing morale. Moreover, they may be setting themselves up to be
sued. Today Ill tell you what the case is for Internet access control,
whos pushing it, and why companies should be careful about it. 

       
THE CASE FOR SPYING
       Its not hard to find statistics on the downside of
cyberslacking. The companies pushing monitoring software do a great 
job of
collecting it.
       
 PC World magazine reported that one in five companies has disciplined
employees for inappropriate use of the Internet.
 The New York Times says 25% of all corporate Internet traffic is
unrelated to work.
 Vault.com says 37% of employees surveyed admitted they constantly 
surfed
non-work-related sites while at work.

         Whats worse, if an employee uses the Internet to harass or
threaten somebody, your company could be liable.
       

THE SPY SUPPLIERS
       Theres a toy box full of programs for parents who want to 
control
their kids Internet use. They have names that sound like they come 
from a
Peanuts cartoon, such as Bess and CyberSnoop.
       
       But theres a different group of programs that aim to monitor
employees. 

 Surfcontrol, formerly JSB, puts walls around surfing according to 
time of
day and other factors. The British-made software allows them to shop 
at
lunch, but sex sites are excluded all the time.

 Websense (which has seen its stock sliding since its IPO in March) 
offers
essentially the same type of software as Surfcontrol. At the
beginning 
of
the year, Websense was used by more than 7,500 organizations, 
including
American Express, Compaq, IBM, J.C. Penney and Merrill Lynch.

 CommandView. Elron Softwares Internet Manager has been around for a
couple of years, but the newest armament in the Elron arsenal is the
CommandView Message Inspector. PC Magazine gave the package a top 
rating
for its ability to monitor the kind of mail thats coming and going.
       
 And there are others:
   Symantec I-Gear
   N2H2
   Secure Computings SmartFilter   
 
   
HOW YOU SHOULD NOT SPY ON YOUR EMPLOYEES

ZDNets John Galvin has a story from the trenches that should scare
any company thinking of monitoring email. It involves a man whose 
email
from a doctor is intercepted by an IT manager. The IT manager then 
blabs
about the mans deadly disease. Think lawsuit. Think bigger lawsuit 
when
the mans insurer hears of the condition and considers dropping his
coverage.

Any company wanting to spy on it employees or restrict their Internet 
use should consider three things first:

 Is the company willing to take on the added liability?

 Is the gain worth the cost in dollars and morale? Spy programs arent
cheap or foolproof.

 Is the problem one that could be solved by a simple Internet policy? 
An

Internet behavior policy is also a great corporate shield from the
misclicks of an errant worker. Click for more. 

       I think companies should resort to monitoring only if all else
fails, but the growth in the industry suggests plenty of CEOs dont
agree. Heres my advice: Hire people you trust, tell them whats 
expected
and move on.
--- End forwarded message ---


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