Community poll forum: Should you be fired for using the internet at work?

Personally I do not think that such drastic
action should be taken,
bearing in mind that such action not only
punishes the Offender but his or her family
as well.

I think that after an initial warning,
any lost time due to surfing in working hours
could possibly be dealt with by imposing
a fine for downtime lost in working hours.

Or even a period of suspension
rather than taking someones employment from them.

Harry

If you are surfing porno sites or other such sites. If you have to, do it on your own computer at home!! Also, if companys are willing to start monitoring personal phone calls, faxes or "water cooler" talking.
Let's be real here, there is a vast amount of time wasted on non-work related chit chat around the office concerning sports, movies, clothing sales, someone's kids, grandkids, vacations, etc. If companys want to cut down on wasted time, attacked it all (including the good ole boys golf games!)

Most companies have the standard company disclaimer at the logon to the company network that the computer and its extended resources are for company use only. Any employee who fails to note that warning and take it seriously is simply foolish. That said, everyone does some personal type of work on the company pc. Whether mapquesting for directions for that weekend trip to emailing friends or checking the balance in your bank account. The question becomes largely one of will I handle things in a reasonable fashions so as not to be standing out to network administrators. If you go out of your way to make yourself known, you will become well known. That is a fact. That this person continued after being warned shows he was a bit ignorance. Nothing else is said about this person's value as an employee but the old adage "they can find a way to fire you" applies. So check you email if you must but do remember that your employer pays you for your efforts on their behalf. Not playing video games and visiting dating sites. One might say that it is a privilege to have the connectivity, not a right. Use it wisely.

My company has Granny software which pops up an Access Denied message if you go to an "undesireable" site.

Unfortunately it is such a piece of crap that it stops me from looking at the Daily Mail newspaper because it has the word "mail" in it but does not stop me from looking at my Google mail.

Bearing in mind that I work in an auto dealership, it also stops me from looking up information on the Florida Highway Patrol website.

The software does not stop you going to a proxy such as anonimizer.com

Mangement attempts to control internet access which produce the above results are worse than pathetic.

if employers would think really hard about the matter, a simple solution would present itself. rules presented to prospective employees at the get go would be a start. internet should be allowed on downtime. most employers provide a couple of 10-15 minute breaks per day and a lunch time of half to a whole hour. what would be the harm in allowing them to sit at their desk and use the internet if it did not interfere with others in the office not on down time. mothers (and dads) could check on their children at day care or private sitters via email during their down time, check with other family members as needed and without worry that they would lose their jobs. people that are allowed to use the net during their down time are more likely not to abuse the system. where is the harm if it does not bog down the other computers in the office. if abuse occurs, warn once and fire next time. very simple and keeps employees happy and bosses have less to worry about. break and lunch time are not productive in itself so how can anyone say "we are losing money"?
that attitude does not compute. break time is for relaxing and preparing for another part of the work day. many of us find using the net a very relaxing thing to do. another thought, if an employee is on break and sitting around, visitors to your business see people doing nothing. if they are using the net on break, they are at least looking busy. if i owned my own company, i would gladly allow my employees internet access during their down time. happy employees are more productive and make for a happy work place. just my opinion.

Whenever I see this stuff about companies and government agencies obsessing about their employees' web use I'm reminded of a study done in Britain in the '70's that found that in offices where employees got away with doing all the naughty stuff like making personal calls on the phones, taking home pencils from the supply closet, making personal copies on the copiers, etc., morale was high and the employees were more productive. People will produce for you if you let them exercise enough autonomy in their work environment that they feel it's their enterprise, too. If you worry about your employee's web use, don't give them access to the web unless they need to have it. There are some agencies and companies that give their employees high-speed internet access capability on their desktops and then think their employees are only going to use the web once or twice a year to look up an occasional address--how do they think these people are even going to know how to do that without a little practice? Who can resist the temptation to escape the humdrum of desk work when the world is placed at your fingertips?

Using the internet at work does not constitute protected speech. Their connection is their property and they have the right to regulate it. If they have a written policy and you have been made aware of it, your lawsuit will be dismissed.

A NY City administrative law judge has recently ruled on a city employee who was fired for being on the internet. His ruling boiled down to, ''Welcome to the 21st century''. What he said was that internet use is no different, in this day, than reading the paper or talking on the phone. In other words, if you work in an office where the guy next to you is reading the Daily News and the woman in the cubicle behind yours gets 20 calls a day from her kids at home, and the office puts up with it, you reading your email or checking airfares is no different. However, if the guy reading the paper could be fired for goofing off or the lady with the kids is told they cannot keep calling, you can't surf the web. Mayor Bloomburg fired a guy on the spot, recently, when he walked into an office and the apparently unattended computer had freecell or some such game up on the screen.

first off, nice to see a linear thread. All the replies to specific posts creates nested structure which is organized, but every now and then, it's nice to see the replies go straight down.

I agree that there is no absolute yes or no answer. You can't have a company where ppl surf all the time at the cost of significant productivity, the company's security, or reputation at the employers' expense just as you can't run a company w/o giving any employees any flexibility. Employees and employers have to meet halfway on this. Well, as an employer, you could not offer any flexibility as it isn't exactly illegal, but the job market isn't THAT bad. People are going to quit and look for other jobs that are better in this regard.

In the olden days (altho these are still going on to some extent today), people can be fired for coming in 2 minutes after 8a (tardiness), saying a single curse word (unprofessionalism), inappropriate attire (not sticking with business colors like light blue or white collered shirt), or going 2 minutes over their break. It's harsh, but I hear of stories where it did happen. However, by showing employees flexibility, they'll ususally be more than happy to go the extra mile for the place they work for (unpaid overtime, company loyalty, etc.). Not surprisingly, this is why some jobs types and work environments have such high turnover rates.

Another case by case is the work environment itself. If you're job requires a security clearance, I can see more strict rules on how and where you use office internet access. If you need to monitor specific company activities like major shipment activities, then you need to have your full attn on the job. My company uses WebSense to filter out games, personal email, and other non business sites. You can still get some gaming sites since they aren't covered, and entertainment, news, and other email sites aren't covered by this filter. Thank goodness for an https personal email account

As for the rest of personal use, many companies don't seem to mind some1 say.... using 2 hours of personal internet use a day. They can be responsible about it by not hogging large bandwidth, not going to dubious or illegal sites/activities (child porn, bit torrent DLs) or letting it get in the way of their work. They can do this and still get their assignments and duties completed. If a company allows employees to surf some "fun sites" of interest like news, blogs, and newsgroups, there should be nothing wrong with legal porn sites, but since it's a gray area, many places will just ban them outright to be on the safe side.

And finally some ppl need to use internet for personal, but adminstrative reasons. Some already mentioned include communicating with your children or sitter, but also include some forms of banking and other activities that need to be taken now. It would be unreasonable in these cases for employees working 8 to 12 hours a day to wait till they get home to do it or do it on a weekend inste4ad... assuming the other places are even open outside of office hours.

Bandwidth is a resource. When you make personal use of it you're wasting it.

As an example, you reading comics online may interrupt the video conference call your boss is making in the boardroom and cause the company to lose a hundred-thousand-dollar deal. In that case you should be very thankful if being fired was the only punishment you received.

If you're viewing porn or something that the general public should not see than dismissal would be somewhat just or couseling and warning first. Using a company pc though does have some issues since it does not belong to the employee using the equipment and if there is an administrator it is likely things would be monitored.

I think it is perfectly ok to use internet as a part of your work and in your daily work schedule. Sometimes it is used to find information about research, accessing database, finding about technical details and so on. Viewing news items and the like is not harmful. If one accesses pornographic sites or uses to entice others for nefarious activities, then it should be punished.

It seems people are arguing back and forth with blanket statements about whther everyone shold or should not be allowed to access the internet for personal reasons. It really depends on the company and a case by case situation. I work at a high tech company and if we are waiting for something to process on the computer, we are allowed to surf appropriate websites, even our online email accounts. There are certain people that abuse this privilege and are surfing the net while they should be working to meet our deadlines. As such, it falls on the hands of the supervisor and their superiors to decide the policy. Those positions above the employee's direct supervisor should set the policy and the supervisor should up hold them if they are strict and not allow any personal access, or, the supervisor must review each person's productivity and decide whether they are given such a privilege or allowed to continue at later dates. I myself have a supervisor who is firm but fair. I can access appropriate web sites of my own personal interests if they do not put the computer network at risk from viruses and spyware, and are not possibly offensive to co-workers and clients alike. Another condition is that I and my co-workers have to meet deadlines on or ahead of schedule and we do.

I was fired for using the internet.
Part of my Job is to use the internet on a daily bases.
The company has spyware to check on you.
I seem to be the only one singled out,investigated,and terminated in 2 day period in a 300 person company.
I don't take breaks normally, so I check my home E-mail this takes less than 5 minutes a day.
My question should I see a lawyer? Is this some thing that should be challenged? My co-workes were dumb founded. What do you think I should do?