In 1994, most companies still did not have Web sites, but they were
rapidly becoming stylish and used by some forward-thinking companies as
a way to disseminate product information to a broad audience.
Entrepreneur Richard Viets, who was running a Web services company at
the time, began to notice that in addition to being used by companies as
a means of publishing information electronically, the Web was also being
used by a more sleazy contingent of the e-commerce world to disseminate
pornography. "I remember clearly one evening we were laughing about it,"
he recalled. "I said, you know what companies are going to need?
Companies are going to need a way to keep these sex sites out of the
workplace, and to keep people from wasting time going to travel sites
and sports sites and things like that." His co-worker looked up and
said, "I know how to do that." And the first Web filtering software was
created.
Today, almost every company in the developed world has a Web site, which
is not only used to publish information, but also as a tool to conduct
e-commerce. But, as it becomes more of a given that employees have Web
access at work, the goof-off factor increases. Inappropriate use of the
Web can cause decreased productivity, bandwidth congestion, and even
legal liabilities. It's quite likely, and appropriate, that a company
would be sued if they allowed employees to post girlie pictures on their
cubicles. Employers are now starting to recognize that not preventing
employees from accessing pornographic Web sites exposes them to the same
liability. The First Amendment issues that come up in other areas, such
as public libraries, are not relevant in the workplace-essentially, you
check your privacy at the door when you go to work.
The right course of action is to first create an Acceptable Use Policy,
and then to enforce it using technology. Viets' original technology,
which has since gone through several iterations and is now part of
Secure Computing's (http://www.securecomputing.com) SmartFilter product,
allows companies to customize their enforcement by either simply denying
access, or allowing access with coaching.
Because one of the big benefits of filtering is preservation of
bandwidth, Secure Computing has taken an interesting turn by joining
forces with Cisco to put the technology directly on Cisco's Content
Engine, an Internet caching device located at the edge of the network.
Caching technology, of course, is designed to preserve bandwidth by
fulfilling requests for Web pages from the edge of the network, as
opposed to fulfilling them from a remote server several hops away in a
remote part of the world. Filtering preserves bandwidth by prohibiting
unauthorized Web surfing. Combining the two is a natural. It's like
peanut butter and chocolate.
"You need to tell your employees that a filtering product is in use, and
that it's being logged," advised Viets. "You can't keep it a secret. The
goal is to foster productivity." Just being aware of its existence will
prevent most employees from going to non-work related Web sites.
Ideally, when you implement a filtering solution, find one that has
preconfigured categories, a substantial (and encrypted) control list,
and the ability to customize that list. In all likelihood, once you've
implemented it and employees discover they can no longer download MP3s
and movie clips, you may find the need for additional bandwidth
disappearing, and the technology will pay for itself.
