Personal web use at work

September 21 2006 - A report by ScanSafe, a global specialist in managed web security, reveals significant differences in workplace web searching in the UK and US.

The report indicates that in August 2006, more than one in 50 web pages requested by employees while at work were house hunting or job search web sites, representing a significant drain on productivity. Approximately 26 per cent of the company's corporate customer base blocks access to job sites and 20 per cent restricts access to property and house hunting sites. In both the UK and the US, visits to house hunting related sites outnumbered visits to job search sites. However, differences in web usage also emerged.

The report found that:

• Workers in the UK are six times more likely to use the web to visit estate agency sites to buy or rent a home than their US counterparts. In total, the company processed approximately 72 million web requests for house hunting-related sites in August 2006.
• US employees are six times more likely to use the web to look for a new job than their counterparts in the UK. The company processed approximately 3.5 million web requests for job search sites in August 2006.
• UK workers are twice as likely to visit wedding-related sites during the work day as US workers.

Eldar Tuvey, CEO of ScanSafe said:

"Getting married, finding a job and looking for a home are three major life-changing events and it's interesting to see how these impact work habits between the two cultures. The bigger picture is that businesses need to develop an internet acceptable use policy and have a web security solution in place that can effectively enforce it. Uncontrolled, non-work related surfing at the office not only consumes bandwidth and lowers productivity, but exposes corporate networks to web viruses, spyware and other malware that can compromise proprietary information."

Also on this subject:

E-mail and Internet misuse

Dealing with inappropriate computer use<