by C.V.Rajan

Created on: September 26, 2009   Last Updated: October 23, 2009

Is it ethical if a manager keeps an eye on an employee who whiles away considerable part of his working hours in the cafeteria either chitchatting with his girl friend or reading his favorite novel while munching a large chuck of Pizza? No one with common sense will perhaps object saying it is unethical. If so, monitoring employee's Internet use in the workplace is also quite ethical.

Internet is part and parcel of today's communication system. Even many of in-company activities of mid and large size organizations demand lots of web usage coupled with Intranet. Naturally, a connection to the Internet from the empoyee's PC cannot be done away with.

Undoubtedly e-mails, chats, social networking through Facebook, Orkut and the like, twitting, blogging etc are some of the activities in which most of the employees engage themselves with, whenever they get an opportunity or a break or as a ruse to get a relaxation from the mundane office work. Even a novice in the use of Internet knows that internet is addictive. How many of us can claim that if we open the internet to see the e-mail and if we find none, we will close the connection and return to the work in hand? Very few of us.

If you don't find a mail, you will just peep into our Facebook, see a friend's new photo album, click it to open, make some juicy comments on the pictures, stumble upon a nice looking girl's photo in the album, find a link to her page, have a peep at her profile and if she has a personal blog "practical tips to be a great lover" you would click on it to see what's that she has written, that, as expert on the subject, you didn't know already!

The result? 45 minutes of your effective office working time would have been eaten away by you without your noticing it. If somebody monitors such a potential and colossal wastage of time, not by a single employee, but practically every one in the office, is it not ethical if your Internet use in the workplace is monitored and if it crosses decent minimum limits, you are warned forthright?

A couple of years back, I was an active member in a blogging site. There were many members having an itch for creative writing (poetry, anecdotes, short stories, political commentary and what not) actively writing their blogs, reading others blogs and commenting on them. I had noticed that whenever I post a humorous blog in the mornings from Monday to Friday around 10 AM to 11 AM, I used to get almost instant comments from many of the blogging members. But if I post

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