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This popularity has created a feedback loop: more people demand more services from the WWW, which causes more people to try it, and they demand more services, etc. However, like all Internet applications, to use the WWW requires an Internet link. Many people use private providers; other people use the resources available through the company Internet link.
It is this second category that is causing problems for employers. There is a growing conception that people who surf the web at work are people who aren't being productive. There have also been cases reported in the press of the use of company resources to trade embarrassing and illegal information, such as child pornography. This has created a market for products like the one below: [1]
Find Out Who's Doing What With Your Internet Connection
The Purview Internet Manager addresses a significant problem for organizations connected to the Internet: how to manage Internet usage by their employees.The Purview Internet Manager is an advanced software program that logs all IP traffic to WWW, FTP, Telnet and Gopher sites. Within minutes of installing the software on a standard Windows NT workstation or server, administrators can begin answering questions such as:
The above excerpt, advertising the Purview Internet Manager reflects the trend of employees to use company Internet resources for personal use, and the backlash by companies to ensure their employees are following the "corporate usage policy." In the crossfire, fundamental issues of privacy are challenged, and the usual question comes out: When does the good of Society (the company, in this case) override the good of the Individual (the employee)?
The company point of view can be summarized in three primary aims: maximize employee productivity, maximize efficient use of the Internet "pipe", and minimize the possibility of negative publicity. [2] These three aims are consistent with the purposes of businesses; to produce the largest possible profit. This involves getting the most out of your workers, getting the most of the money spent on overhead, and ensuring good publicity for the company.
Maximizing employee productivity has always been a company goal. Getting employees to work harder is the subject of many a seminar on "employee motivation", and other buzzwords. In this case, the object of monitoring is to ensure that employees spend their time going after "work-related" WWW sites, as opposed to reading what Captain Sheridan will be doing on Babylon 5 next week. [3]
Maximizing efficient use of the Internet "pipe" ties in with efficient use of resources, which leads to increased profits. Employers want to ensure that the money being invested into their Internet feeds is coming back in terms of increased efficiency and problem solving ability.
Finally, employers want to minimize, or, ideally, eliminate bad publicity. Negative comments about a company or its employees is bad for business. As such, business are conservative for the most part, because controversy creates bad publicity.
Thus, the close watch on WWW access, in terms of all sorts of statistics: time spent, which sites, how much downloaded, etc. At many companies, employees are scrutinized as to the amount of time they spend working, as to the amount of time spent "goofing off." There is also a magnitude factor at work here; spending five extra minutes reading about the Space Shuttle is considered less of a penalty then spending five minutes looking at nude pictures.
Is this necessarily evil? Is there a violation of prviacy here? Is this some dark, Orwellian style "Big Brother" scenario? Or is this simply the right of companies to ensure that the company succeeds?
One cannot argue with the fact that workers are meant to work. After all, that's how businesses survive; workers have to do something to earn their paycheques, or the system falls apart. As well, employers have to maintain a certain standard in their workplace; potential customers coming into the office during business hours and watching employees play games or viewing nude pictures will have a definitely negative view of the company. As well, viewing nude pictures could be considered a civil rights violation; there are several precedents on record. [4]
However, employers have a responsibility to ensure the care of their employees. Employees who have a sense of self worth, and have a view that the company values their worth, will work harder and better than employees who are driven on by the fear of losing their job (though, admittedly, the latter can be a pretty compelling force.) In the "old days", the anology would be a group of employees gathering around the Water Cooler for an extra five minutes while they discuss some random bit of trivia; no employer would penalize these people for that action, if it was done infrequently. Likewise, an employee would have been extremely unlikely to bring in his copy of Playboy (or her copy of Playgirl) and ogle over the pictures over coffee.
These days, however, there has been a gradual blurring between what is acceptable behaviour, and what is unacceptable behaviour. The Internet and the WWW contribute to this behaviour in many ways; many types of material, obscene or not, are available through knowledge of an URL. Never before has such "information freedom" been available to employees at a work place.
Seeing such freedom for the first time can cause employees to forget themselves initially. Such behaviour is understandable, if somewhat embarrassing at times; the discovery of the WWW enlarges ones world immensely. However, it is because of this initial behaviour that employers are prepared to implement drastic measure to monitor, even curtail its use. There are several companies that have Internet access, but allow only a few employees accounts; and these employees must demonstrate a required need. [5] Others have turned away from the Net entirely, because of this fear.
What appears to be needed is a good strong dose of common sense. Employees must realize that they are at the company for one reason; their value to the company. They have to perform their required roles, and they must perform them to a certain standard, or lose their job. As well, they must realize that they have a certain obligation to maintain a certain standard or decorum in their office environment.
On the other hand, employers must also realize that employees are people too. Sometimes they just need to take a break from what is going on around them. Indeed, sometimes problems can be solved quicker if the employee working on them can be allowed a moment to change focus. As well, the employer must realize that what people do over lunch and other pre-arranged "stop" times is their business; as long as it doesn't affect anybody else, why make a big deal of it? Finally, if an employee choses to stay after work and use the computing resources of the company, is that a problem? Most companies purchase internet access in monthly payments for unlimited access, and both the link and the computers would be idle after hours anyways.
In the final summary, employees must realize that WWW access is a privilege, and, must not be abused. Employers must realize that WWW access is a coming trend, and that they must eventually create reasonable access policies for the WWW, and that, as in many other things, employers must trust their employees not to abuse WWW access. Finally, employees and employers must communicate to find the common ground acceptable to both of them. This is environment dependant, and must be settled between each individual employer and its' employees.
Is Big Brother watching? In some cases, yes, but it is not too late. Monitoring occurs, especially in workplaces where paranoia or abuse dominates, but it has not become an industry standard. With communication and common sense, Big Brother can be avoided. Otherwise... well, there are things worse than Big Brother.
[2] These points appear on the Purview WWW site, and have also been discussed in the press and other forums.
[3] If you are interested in seeing what Captain Sheridan will be doing next week, how about The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5 - http://www.hyperion.com/lurk/
[4] Here's an example close to home: the MFCF Account Usage Policy - http://math.uwaterloo.ca/mfcf/usage-policy/account-usage-policy.html
[5] A good example of this is BNR; a friend of mine spent two work terms there. (So this information is current as of 1995; this might have changed.
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