In fact, many pundits in the industry are affectionately naming the feature "porn mode" as it gives users the ability to view adult sites without leaving evidence. According to WebSpy COO, Lagis Zavros, "There should be no concern for employers."

These features have no doubt been introduced by demand and on the back of society's growing concern over protecting individual privacy rights. Many people believe that an individual's private activity on the Internet should remain private as long as it is legal and acceptable within that society. Activity within the workplace however is a different matter. Employers have a duty of responsibility to protect their assets, minimize risk and maximize the return to their stakeholders whether they are private or public.

Zavros added, "It should be emphasized that these new features are purely aimed at the home market. Most organizations will have web, proxy servers or firewalls all capable of capturing and logging traffic as it flows through the company. Individual users will not be able to bypass this and employers will still be able to monitor sites visited and general browsing activity. Dynamic changes in technology and work cultures make it imperative for employers to have acceptable usage policies and monitoring of employees.

Zavros concluded, "A number of vendors have tools that place surveillance agents on individuals PC's and it is often very easy for technology savvy employees to bypass these. WebSpy has focused on providing monitoring and reporting by leveraging data from secure servers or from an ISP and hence has no concerns regarding the introduction of privacy features with IE 8 or Google Chrome."

Last update: 01-29-2009 17:32