Analysis: Employers Getting Tougher on Social Networking Use

"When Web filtering first became an option for companies, we generally saw them block access to typical categories such as pornography, illegal activities and hate and discrimination," said Spencer Parker, director of product management at ScanSafe. "In recent months, employers are obviously wising up to the dangers and negative impact on productivity linked to certain sites and more and more of our customers have chosen to block social networking, online banking and Webmail."

An analysis of more than 1 billion Web requests processed by the company each month indicates a 20% increase in the number of customers blocking social networking sites in the last six months. Currently, 76% of companies are choosing to block social networking, and it is now a more popular category to block than online shopping (52%), weapons (75%), alcohol (64%), sports (51%) and Webmail (58%), according to ScanSafe.

Employers dont take the same stern approach to online banking, with less than half (47%) of ScanSafe customers blocking this category.

ScanSafe found an increase in the number of customers choosing to block these online categories in the last six months:

• 28% increase in travel.
• 27% increase in restaurants and bars.
• 26% increase in sports.
• 26% increase in online shopping.
• 19% increase in job searches.
• 16% increase in Webmail.

"Social networking sites can expose businesses to malware, and if not used for business purposes, can be a drain on productivity and bandwidth," Parker asserted. "Given the option, companies are increasingly taking a sterner approach to the sites that their employees are allowed to access. I imagine before long, social networking will be up there with pornography in terms of categories blocked."

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