Josh Erich used to spend his downtime at work posting notes on Web sites like Facebook.com and MySpace.com and listening to online radio. That was until a few months ago, when the New York real-estate office where he works suddenly blocked employee access to those sites, among others. "Everyone was pretty peeved," says Mr. Erich.
"Even the managers seemed a bit upset." The 25-year-old Mr. Erich is part of a new generation of workers that sent instant messages in high school and logged on to social-networking sites in college. Now, they see no reason to stop, even if they've graduated to the workplace. But some of their companies' technology and human-resources officers do. They argue that when employees access media like online video, it saps technology resources, which can slow down tasks like transferring files over the corporate network or accessing email or the Internet. Company overseers worry about Internet safety and security. Plus they don't like the idea of employees goofing around on the Internet.
Software to block employees from accessing certain sites has been around since the early days of the Internet, from small vendors such as Websense Inc. and SurfControl PLC and larger security companies that include Web-filtering software in broader software packages. (Microsoft Corp., for instance, last year bought a Web-filtering product from a Houston-based company called FutureSoft Inc.) Research firm Gartner Inc. estimates that companies spent $350 million for such software last year, up 17% from $299 million in 2005. But in the past year or so, companies have changed the ways in which they use such software.
While many companies previously used the software to prevent employees from viewing what they call the "sinful six" -- pornography, gambling, illegal activities, and content that is hateful, violent or otherwise tasteless -- they are now adapting it to the new uses, and problems, of the Internet. In particular, they are using the software against sites that could suck up company resources or introduce security hazards.
Some companies -- such as Mr. Erich's firm, Prudential Douglas Elliman, an affiliate of Prudential Financial Inc. -- are blocking employees from logging on to social-networking sites like MySpace, owned by News Corp., and Facebook Inc. or on Google Inc.'s video site YouTube. A spokeswoman for the real-estate firm declined to comment. Other companies, such as Mustang Engineering, a manufacturing company owned by John Wood Group PLC of Aberdeen, Scotland, are taking a more moderate approach. Brady Brown, a network administrator at Mustang, noticed that there had been a huge surge in use of the company's bandwidth last summer when employees were watching World Cup videos over the Internet from work. (Was he among the soccer viewers, too? "Absolutely," he says.) To curb office viewing, Mr. Brown temporarily changed some settings of the company's Web-filtering software to limit the percentage of bandwidth that could be taken by video. While most employees could still watch World Cup action, the videos ran less smoothly than usual or took a few tries to access. "Some people may not have been able to access it, or it may have been slower, but it was there," Mr. Brown says. |
These days, Mustang employees remain free to access YouTube and other video-sharing sites. But one London office uses software from Blue Coat Systems Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., to block employees from using online shopping sites during most of the day, except for a period during lunch, Mr. Brown says. Companies should be careful when it comes to imposing restrictions, cautions Manny Avramidis, senior vice president for global human resources at the American Management Association, a training organization for managers based in New York. He says employees should realize that they should use company resources and time mostly for work-related tasks, but advises companies against restricting valued employees too much as long as they're getting their work done.
Some offending sites can also have business uses. Jon Barnhardt, 25, works in an information-technology unit at MDU Resources Group Inc., a company in Bismarck, N.D., that has businesses in construction, natural gas and oil, and other areas. A few times a week, he accesses YouTube to watch video demonstrations of software or hardware his company might use, posted by outside technology vendors.
But a few months ago, Mr. Barnhardt's company blocked employees from visiting YouTube, forcing him to watch the videos from home in the evening. MDU says the company made the change "to restrict sites that have no business purpose but take a lot of resources." The company adds that if there is a business-related reason for a site to be viewed, they can open up the site to a user.
Mr. Barnhardt says he understands that the company needs to use its bandwidth for corporate tasks, so he doesn't mind the ban. When he could use it at work, he also remembers getting distracted by random, nonwork-related videos every time he visited YouTube.
Some employees have taken a more rebellious stance: On online message boards, they trade tips for circumventing Web-filtering programs. Sites like BrowseAtWork.com and FreeProxy.com help people circumvent their companies' blocking efforts by letting them plug in a Web address and surf there indirectly, through a sort of middleman site.
Still others, like Mr. Erich, have found other ways to keep themselves entertained at work. While Facebook and MySpace are off limits, Mr. Erich can still write in his blog at LiveJournal.com. While the instant-messaging program from Time Warner Inc.'s AOL unit isn't allowed, he can chat with friends through the instant-messaging tool in Google's email service, Gmail. And he plays some online games, like Bejeweled, where he has to line up jewels in a row to score points.
"It's about taking a mental break," he says. "Not everyone wants to go outside and take a walk." |
