Employers controlling employees use of Cyberspace
Jason Romney (jromney@werple.mira.net.au)
Mon, 12 Feb 1996 13:01:44 +1100
RETURN TO INFOTECH: [1]NORMAL || [2]LOW-GRAPHICS
__________________________________________________________________
EMPLOYERS WARN EMPLOYEES TO STOP GOOFING OFF IN CYBERSPACE
__________________________________________________________________________
Copyright © 1996 Nando.net
Copyright © 1996 The Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO (Feb 7, 1996 00:29 a.m. EST) -- No one would dream of
sending one of those raunchy "I never thought I'd be writing this ..."
letters to Penthouse on the company letterhead. Nor would many
employees take out a subscription to Hustler and have it delivered to
the office.
But that's pretty close to what some employees are doing on their
computers at work these days. Using their corporate e-mail addresses,
they're sending letters to sexually explicit bulletin boards or
downloading material such as the "Hottest Babes of Amsterdam."
Employers are getting wise to the situation, and in some cases are
warning their staffs to knock it off.
In its extremely detailed eight-page memo "Acceptable Internet Usage
Policy," Texaco Inc. tells employees straight out that they're being
watched via the computer activity logs and that no funny business will
be tolerated.
Texaco expressly bars employees from downloading offensive material
from the Internet. Violators can be fired.
"The user should consider their Internet activity as public
information and limit their activity accordingly," the memo reads.
Louis Maltby of the ACLU's Workplace Privacy Taskforce said: "It's the
company's computer, and they have the right to tell you what you can
do with it -- and they certainly have the right to tell you you can
only use it for work."
"When you walk into the workplace, you check your privacy at the
door," said Beth Givens, director of the University of San Diego
Center for Public Interest Law. "In numerous court cases, employers
have retained the right to monitor the work product of their employees
-- and that included electronic mail, voice mail, telephone
conversations and keystroke monitoring."
Not all employers are as concerned as Texaco. At the Boeing Co. in
Seattle, where about 10 percent of employees have Internet access, Lee
Lathrop, Boeing's Web master, said: "Our experience has been that when
people first get on, they do spend a lot of time looking around and
learning to use it. After about 30 days, it falls off and they're very
responsible."
An acceptable-use policy is being written, however, and Boeing is
considering some type of filtering program to bar access to certain
key words.
"There's no business reason why anybody might be looking at sex pages
at work," Lathrop said.
As for computer giants IBM and Microsoft, neither has specific
policies in place.
Washington lawyer Mark Rasch, who specializes in computer and Internet
security, recommends companies come up with a policy on what is
permissible and make sure everyone knows about it.
But computer privacy advocate Jim Warren called the whole matter an
issue as old as the notion of paid employment.
"It's pilfered time," he said. "If you don't let me pilfer time
watching alt.sex.superhunks, I'll do it around the water cooler -- the
old-fashioned way."
__________________________________________________________________
[ [3]GLOBAL | [4]STATESIDE | [5]SPORTS | [6]POLITICS | [7]VOICES |
[8]BUSINESS | [9]INFOTECH | [10]HEALTH & SCIENCE | [11]ENTERTAINMENT |
[12]MAIN ]
__________________________________________________________________
Copyright © 1996 Nando.net
Do you have some [13]feedback for the Nando Times staff?