Employees to be billed for personal Net use?

Employees who surf the Net at work could receive a bill each month for the cost of borrowed bandwidth and wasted time if Australia-based Exinda Networks' URL- and bandwidth-monitoring system takes off.

Exinda Networks says it's developed a system that allows a company to monitor exactly which Web sites are visited by each employee and how much bandwidth has been used--in terms of a cash loss to the employer.

		Related story Mind those IMs; your cubicle's walls have eyes As more firms install tools to keep tabs on workers, start-ups and heavy hitters alike spy opportunities.

Con Nikolouzakis, director of Exinda Networks, said the URL- and bandwidth-monitoring system was designed to ensure that employees are held responsible for the cost of misused bandwidth and time.

"If you use your office computer for Internet banking and booking theater tickets, you're fine. If you choose to use it to download illegal software, research personal interests or other non-business uses, then you could be issued with a 'please explain' and a bill for the costs of the bandwidth and time you wasted," Nikolouzakis said.

According to Nikolouzakis, access to certain sites can be blocked, and bandwidth abusers can have their bandwidth throttled, which would significantly slow that individual's access to the undesirable Web site. Additionally, the employee could be presented with a bill.

"Theoretically, individual employees could be charged a fee for non-business-related Internet usage on a monthly basis, if an employer wanted to get tough on staff abusing their Web access but didn't want to block them altogether," Nikolouzakis said.

However, not everyone agrees that charging employees for personal bandwidth is a good idea.

James Turner, industry analyst for security and services at Frost & Sullivan, said that charging employees for personal bandwidth usage would stir up a hornet's nest because bandwidth is relatively cheap and employees get a "morale boost" from having some freedom to surf at work.

"Most employees sign an acceptable-Internet-usage policy when they join a new company," Turner said. "After that, there is a level of trust between employer and employee. Companies like Computer Associates already have software that can measure an individual's bandwidth usage, so the technology isn't new, and across the market there is not a huge demand."

However, Turner did agree that there is a need for employers to spot the employees that regularly abuse the system.

"The tiny minority of bandwidth abusers are most likely downloading illegal material (such as pirated movies)," Turner said, "and their employers need to be able to detect and stop this for antipiracy reasons. No company wants to be involved in trafficking stolen goods, and storing illegal digital material is an extension of this."

Munir Kotadia of ZDNet Australia reported from Sydney.

[Razzl]

Scroogeware...

I remember a study done in Britain in the late 70's showing that in offices where the staff were allowed to do the minor naughty stuff such as personal photocopying or phone calling and steal pencils from the supply closet, morale was highest and people were most productive. Web use is part of that package today. It's human nature to make use of what you have at hand and give yourself a breather at the office with these little diversions. Given the large percentage of web commerce that originates from office computers it may also be suicidal for certain businesses to encourage clamping down on web use. This software is the modern equivalent of the pay toilet...

[zizzybaloobah]

Why stop at bandwith?

Charge employees for the electricity (and lightbulbs) used when reading newspapers on the job, for the water they use in their personal coffee makers, and for the paper towels they use to clean their eyeglasses, etc. etc.

[mcugaedu]

Only for special cases...

If I were an employer, I might well want to have this capability, but I'd use it only in severe cases. I'm thinking of people who are collecting movies on a grand scale or are addicted to pornography or gambling. Just a few of those can really interfere with everyone else's network bandwidth.

It would be foolish to charge people for taking a quick look at CNN News or (shudder!) even CNET, or even "researching personal interests" in moderation. We want employees to have active minds.

On the other hand, this might be yet another tool to detect spyware, too.

jeez.

Man.. you'd have to have some real motherf*ckers in charge at your
company for them to install this program.

When you are slave to stockholders...

...as every public company is, you must generate growth all the time or else. You must increase your profit all the time or else. This means you must cut costs or else. And in the end this means being stingy to employees. Publicly-traded corporations suck, I've been in two of them.
I come to work every day knowing the stockholder is more important than any of the employees who put their time and effort into the work.
Yes, it is true- the little extra expenditures and allowances for employees like internet access and plastic utensils and paper plates and other things play an essential role in employee morale. But to the publicly-traded company, these are just additional barriers to stockholder satisfaction.