More than 75% of people have accidentally visited a pornographic Web site while at work. Furthermore, 15% have visited such sites more than 10 times, according to a new Web usage survey conducted by Cerberian Inc., a Web filtering provider for businesses, homes and schools; and SonicWALL Inc., an integrated security, productivity and mobility provider.
The survey also reported that 50% of respondents spent more than 10% of their time at work surfing the Web for personal reasons, which is roughly equal to four hours per week, or nearly nine days a year.
More than 2,400 people responded during the month of April 2004 via e-mail to questions about everything from Internet access policies, to personal surfing habits at work and feelings about coworkers surf habits.
According to the survey, the Internet is still a relatively unmonitored medium with 60% of the respondents indicating their organizations did not have rules against personal Web surfing at work, and more than 50% of organizations have not implemented any type of Internet filtering technology.
Unmonitored Internet access raises potential liability issues for organizations especially when it comes to employees being exposed to pornography at the office and employees using corporate resources to download, store and exchange copyrighted material. Inappropriate use of the Internet at work may give rise to serious disciplinary problems in the workplace. Results from the Cerberian/SonicWALL Web Usage Survey validate the need for organizations to implement Internet access policies and content filtering technologies, according to the companies.
“We recommend that organizations take the initiative and implement the appropriate Internet access policies to help strengthen employee productivity and network security,” said Matt Mosman, CEO of Cerberian, in a statement.
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