Importance of Developing Web Filtering Policies to Tackle Social Media Site Use at Work

Aug 22, 2011 | Social Media, Web Filtering

Last week, SpamTitan issued a press release about its new social media cost calculator. The calculator was developed to help companies estimate the amount of man hours (and therefore money) they are losing as a result of employees accessing social media websites at work. The SpamTitan social media cost calculator has proved popular and attracted a great many online comments.

Calculating the true cost of social media site use by employees

In order to calculate the true cost of social media, SpamTitan took a close look at social media usage statistics. An average profile for a typical organization was created and data was extrapolated to provide an estimated annual cost.

The results of the calculations showed that a typical company loses approximately $65,000 every year as a result of employees spending time checking and posting information on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the myriad of other social media and social networking websites. SpamTitan calculated that the figure corresponds to 5% of every employee’s salary being wasted on personal social media use.

Many of the comments came from individuals who thought we were suggesting that all organizations should install a web filter and implement a company policy that bans the accessing of all social media sites at work. This was not our intention. There are advantages to allowing members of staff access to social media sites at work. There are also many disadvantages to banning access. Managers will be well aware that social media websites are being accessed by employees, and that employees spend a considerable amount of time those websites. What they perhaps do not know is how much time is spent, and how much this is costing them. That is information they need to know.

Should social media site access be banned at work?

Companies should make a decision about the use of social media at work. They will need to assess the benefits of allowing the staff some “Facetime”, and the disadvantages from the loss of access rights. There are also many legal considerations to consider and the accessing of these sites also raises a number of privacy and security concerns.

Many organizations may like to ban the accessing of the websites; but, in reality, doing so is complicated. It is not possible to implement a web filter that blocks all social networking and social media sites for everyone in the organization. The marketing department will need to access those websites. The IT department may do too for work purposes. A company-wide ban may not be realistic.

Some employees may only spend a few minutes a day on the sites, or may access them when they do not have work duties to complete. Some may only use the websites during coffee breaks. Should those individuals be banned from using the sites when it doesn’t impact on their work duties?

Something else worth considering, is whether it is better to allow staff to use their work computers to access the sites than have employees access them surreptitiously on their Smartphones. Is it better to be able to monitor use of the sites?

One of the most workable solutions is to put policies in place covering the use of social media websites and to instruct employees that the use of the sites must be kept to a minimum. If used in moderation, social media site usage need not result in a major cost to the business. However, it must be possible to control use of the sites and, for that, a web filter can be highly beneficial.

Provided that the chosen web filtering solution is flexible, and can allow controls to be put in place for the entire organization, departments´ – or individuals´ – usage can be effectively controlled without implementing a blanket ban. The same web filter should can also be used to block other websites – those containing malware.

Would a social media site ban work in your organization? Would productivity fall further due to unhappy staff?

Will .XXX Domains Make Web Filtering Pornography Easier?

Aug 15, 2011 | Internet Security News, Web Filtering

There was a buying frenzy following the release of the new .xxx suffixed domains. Pornographers, Internet marketers and entrepreneurs competed to secure the hottest and rudest of them. The first of the .xxx websites have now gone live, there has been further talk about compartmentalization of the Internet, with the possibility of all pornographic websites being confined to those sites with a .xxx suffix. However, will the .xxx domains make web filtering pornography any easier?

ICAN releases .xxx domains for sale

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names or ICANN as it is better known, created the new top-level Internet domain specifically for websites of an adult nature. The long term view was to eventually move all pornographic websites to the xxx domains. This could clean up the Internet and make it much easier for parents and businesses to block pornographic websites. It is, after all, much easier to block a single domain type than to implement web filtering to prevent all websites containing pornographic material from being viewed. IT security professionals and individuals who want to stop porn from being accessible via their computers, phones, and tablets could therefore just block the xxx extension.

There is a problem of course. Owners of adult websites have been buying up new domain names in the thousands, but will they redirect their current .com, .co.uk, .org and .net sites to the new .xxx domains?

Of course they won’t. They’ve just been given even more domain names to fill with pornography, and any redirects are likely to come from the .xxx domain names back to their main, well-established websites.

Unless laws are introduced to force purveyors of adult content over to the new domains, the online adult entertainment industry will simply not make the switch. Some firms will undoubtedly activate their new xxx websites, but unless everyone does, the initiative will be seen to have failed and web filtering pornography will be no easier.

Will the XXX domains make web filtering pornography any easier?

Potentially, the creation of the new domain will make it easier to filter some adult sites, so it will make the job of web filtering a little easier. Advocates of the new domain claim that the creation of these sites is a step in the right direction. The .xxx domains will make it easier to filter adult content (and easier for people who want access to the sites to remember the correct suffix). At some point in the future, laws can be introduced to force adult content into an easily blocked section of the Internet.

However, cynics will quite rightly point out that current website owners who have invested a considerable amount of time, resources and money into promoting their .com sites and building links are not going to let all that effort and investment go to waste. The new domain suffix may therefore just have given pornographers the opportunity to create a lot more websites.

There is another problem. Many individuals and companies make a living out of buying up domain names in the thousands. These cybersquatters purchase domain names at a low price, at $10 a pop for instance, and then list them for sale for hundreds or thousands of dollars. They buy up existing companies’ brands and will only sell them on if their asking price is met. Many companies will therefore not be able to buy the .xxx equivalent of their current site.

Do you think the creation of the new domains will help with web filtering pornography any easier? Will Internet surfers still be bombarded with pornography?