When workers are eye-balling stock market ticks and hopping into auction sites, they aren't doing their jobs, which triggers employer worries about wasted time. Aggravating matters is that more and more companies are providing Net access to more employees. With the Net bringing new workplace threats, more employers seem willing to join the Big Brother ranks. Business use of monitoring software is growing. The AMA survey base, however, is mostly drawn from large businesses and experts readily concede that use of Net surveillance tools in smaller businesses is far less widespread.
Entrepreneurs are still divided on instituting eyes-on policies.
I'm not going to invade my people's privacy. For many of my workers, e-mail is their primary mode of communication. I have confidence in my team. I've found it necessary to limit employee use of the Net. Rothman's main way of monitoring Net use is by walking around and watching, and she's told her five employees that if they don't shape up, she'll unplug all their Net connections and set up one computer in her office for supervised access.