Comments on: where do employees go online? http://www.cheezhead.com/2006/05/24/where-do-employees-go-online/ Insight and opinion from the world of employment. Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:55:40 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Nathan Gilliatt http://www.cheezhead.com/2006/05/24/where-do-employees-go-online/#comment-807 Nathan Gilliatt Wed, 24 May 2006 21:24:26 +0000 http://www.cheezhead.com/2006/05/24/where-do-employees-go-online/#comment-807 It's easy to assume that IT managers with access to access logs can report more accurately than users on their use of non-work-related web sites. The log doesn't know users' motivation, though, and the survey sponsor has an incentive to presume the worst. Websense, of course, wants companies to decide that they really need web filtering. I won't try to defend the sports or adult sites as work-related, but it is possible for some of the others to be work-related, at least some of the time. For example, business travellers could find work-related information on weather, maps and travel sites. Blogs--now there's a broad category! Is Cheezhead work-related reading? Hacking and keylogging sites sound like a security problem to me, probably something the end user doesn't even know his computer is doing. News, education, stocks/investing, government and more *could* be work-related. I encourage clients to use many of these sites as free information sources for market intelligence.I could go on. The point is that a simple compilation of sites visited tells you exactly that--sites visited. Determining what is work-related is a bit more complicated. Which doesn't even get into the blurring boundaries between work and personal life that don't seem to bother companies when work seeps into personal time. It’s easy to assume that IT managers with access to access logs can report more accurately than users on their use of non-work-related web sites. The log doesn’t know users’ motivation, though, and the survey sponsor has an incentive to presume the worst.

Websense, of course, wants companies to decide that they really need web filtering. I won’t try to defend the sports or adult sites as work-related, but it is possible for some of the others to be work-related, at least some of the time. For example, business travellers could find work-related information on weather, maps and travel sites. Blogs–now there’s a broad category! Is Cheezhead work-related reading?

Hacking and keylogging sites sound like a security problem to me, probably something the end user doesn’t even know his computer is doing.

News, education, stocks/investing, government and more *could* be work-related. I encourage clients to use many of these sites as free information sources for market intelligence.I could go on. The point is that a simple compilation of sites visited tells you exactly that–sites visited. Determining what is work-related is a bit more complicated.

Which doesn’t even get into the blurring boundaries between work and personal life that don’t seem to bother companies when work seeps into personal time.

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