Productivity issues are clearly tied to money. Second to production is preserving bandwidth resources. In the past, if everybody complained that the network was slow, the response was to throw another T1 line at it. But if you open a bigger pipe, you might just fill it with more unnecessary traffic, says Blakeman. Instead of clogging pipes with Napster traffic, streaming video, and day trading, companies can initiate employee monitoring or filtering to discourage excessive Internet use and perhaps save the cost of adding additional bandwidth.
Corporations also turn to surveillance to protect themselves from legal liability.
Two common examples are sexual harassment and a hostile work environment. Seventy percent of porn traffic occurs during regular business hours, according to SexTracker, a service that monitors pornography site usage. Pornography in the workplace and sexually explicit e-mail have resulted in firings, lawsuits, and large monetary settlements. Regarding lawsuits, e-mail is more often the culprit than inappropriate Internet usage. They'll say in an e-mail message something they'd never consider saying in an open business meeting.