Both Microsoft and Google have recently introduced new privacy features to their Internet browsers IE8 and Chrome. These features have no doubt been introduced thanks to increasing collective concern over protecting individual privacy rights. Many believe that an individual’s private online activity 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. Undoubtedly some employers are concerned that these new browser features will lead to an increase in “undetected” recreational browsing by employees. In fact, many industry experts are affectionately naming the feature “porn mode” as it gives users the ability to view adult sites without leaving evidence. A number of software vendors sell tools that place surveillance agents on individuals PC’s but it is often very easy for technology savvy employees to bypass these.
It should be emphasized that these new features will predominately be utilized by the home user market. Most organizations will have web, proxy servers or firewalls all capable of capturing and logging traffic as it flows through the company. With such network devices in place individual users will not be able to hide their Internet activity. WebSpy focus on providing monitoring and reporting by leveraging data from network devices, secure servers or from an ISP and has no concerns regarding the introduction of privacy features with IE 8 or Google Chrome. Organizations using WebSpy can rest assure their organizational browsing activity will stay transparent and can be reported on to ensure adherence to acceptable Internet usage policy.
Read other articles about new browser features:
Google’s new Chrome browser comes with privacy
Leave A Comment