Fear of violating a restriction may limit a staff persons ability to fully utilize the power of the Internet for their job. Exploration through the uncharted web of cyberspace is often the best way to find valuable work-related information. In the process, a staff person may link into websites that have nothing to do with their work. More typical are the policies of the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District. It will be interesting to see if that policy changes after security concerns are resolved through firewalls, backup systems, virus scans etc.
Some organizations attempt to define a middle ground.
Many lead off with language clarifying who owns the information that is being sent and received. This alone should be enough of a warning to staff to be careful in what they do with an agency provided Internet account. For example, the California Integrated Waste Management Board policies include this statement in the first paragraph. All e-mail messages, regardless of content are the property of the State of California and are archived by Information Management Branch as part of their standard disk backup process. The East Bay Municipal Utilities District in the San Francisco Bay Area also has strict restrictions against personal use of district-provided Internet accounts.