by Tammie Kuhn

Created on: January 03, 2009   Last Updated: March 23, 2012

Employees have an obligation to their employers to perform the job they were hired to do. Let's face it - unless your job requires surfing the Internet, it is a waste of productivity and the company's money to be doing so. Employers have the right to monitor the usage of any of the tools they provide, from pencils to Internet bandwidth. I have heard the "invasion of privacy" cries, and I do not believe this is any kind of invasion of rights; the employee is using company resources in a manner which is not beneficial to the company.

I was a manager for many years, and have seen the abuse of the Internet. Prior to monitoring software, it was easy to take advantage of an unsuspecting employer. I have seen employees bid for items on e-Bay, have hours long chats with friends via Instant Messenger, and even seen people looking at porn sites. I had an employee cheerfully tell me that she got all of her Christmas shopping done on-line; she said that it was so easy to look up items and find the best prices while speaking to our customers.

Aside from the obvious lack of productivity, there is also the issue of dangerous sites. Even with the firewalls many corporations use, it is still possible to unwittingly bring a computer virus into the company's system. The employee is putting their company's data at risk every time they go to a website. There have been several instances of "hacking" in the news recently, and I would bet that at least some of them were directly caused by employees using the Internet for purposes not related to their jobs.

There is also the issue of pornography. What company wants to end up on the evening news because one of their employees was involved with a pornography site? It has happened. Years ago, I worked at a large publicly traded company. Unbeknownst to me (and most of his colleagues), one of the gentlemen we worked with surfed the Internet daily for child porn. During a sting operation by authorities, the IP address of the computer was tracked to our company, and he was escorted out of our building in handcuffs. It made the news, and our company's stock fell 20%.

The bottom line is, regardless of the employees intentions, the company has a right to ensure that their resources are being used for the company's interests. They have a right to protect their stockholders from embarrassment and loss. By monitoring employees Internet usage, they can ensure that their employees are using the tools provided to them in an appropriate manner.

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