[Air-l] Internet ethics

[elw at stderr.org]

Most large corporations and universities (and, frankly, anywhere with 
competent tech folks...) already heavily filter and censor employee access 
to the internet.

The government agency, in this case, is doing a pretty poor job of 
controlling what employees are and are not able to do with their computing 
resources.

Taking vendor bundled games off of computers is usually step 1.  Step 2 is 
usually to lock down the border firewall such that access to things like 
myspace, yahoomail, gmail, hotmail, and slashdot are denied.  ;)

--e


On Mon, 24 Apr 2006, Gail Taylor wrote:

> Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 09:02:45 -0500
> From: Gail Taylor <gdtaylor at uiuc.edu>
> Reply-To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
> To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
> Subject: [Air-l] Internet ethics
> 
> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm starting to track the manner in which employees are
> being disciplined by their employers for using Internet-
> based technologies during their on- and off-duty work hours.
> I came across a news story this morning that might be of
> interest to others of you who might be doing the same.
>
> An administrative judge in the U.S. has ruled that "surfing
> the web is equivalent to reading a newspaper or talking on
> the phone" in workplace settings. The employee in question
> works for a government agency. Do you think this ruling is
> one that private sector employers will see as a signal to
> rethink and restructure current definitions of employee
> appropriate use of Internet-based technologies?
>
> -- Gail
>
> Gail Taylor, M.Ed.
> Human Resource Education Ph.D. Student
> University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
>
> *****************************************************
> Judge: Web-Surfing Worker Can't Be Fired
>
> Saying surfing the web is equivalent to reading a newspaper
> or talking on the phone, an administrative law judge has
> suggested that only a reprimand is appropriate as punishment
> for a city worker accused of failing to heed warnings to
> stay off the Internet.
>
> Administrative Law Judge John Spooner reached his decision
> in the case of Toquir Choudhri, a 14-year veteran of the
> Department of Education who had been accused of ignoring
> supervisors who told him to stop browsing the Internet at
> work.
>
> The ruling came after Mayor Michael Bloomberg fired a worker
> in the city's legislative office in Albany earlier this year
> after he saw the man playing a game of solitaire on his
> computer.
>
> In his decision, Spooner wrote: "It should be observed that
> the Internet has become the modern equivalent of a telephone
> or a daily newspaper, providing a combination of
> communication and information that most employees use as
> frequently in their personal lives as for their work."
>
> He added: "For this reason, city agencies permit workers to
> use a telephone for personal calls, so long as this does not
> interfere with their overall work performance. Many agencies
> apply the same standard to the use of the Internet for
> personal purposes."
>
> Spooner dispensed the lightest possible punishment on
> Choudhri, a reprimand, after a search of Choudhri's computer
> files revealed he had visited several news and travel sites.
>
> Martin Druyan, Choudhri's lawyer, called the ruling "very
> reasonable."
>
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