Over 75 percent of 2,400 people surveyed during April said they saw Internet porn accidentally while on the job, demonstrating workers are somewhat alarmed over how easy it is to reach Net porn, according to a joint survey by Web filtering company Cerberian and security firm SonicWall, Inc.
The survey results showed that most of the respondents (53 percent) who saw Net porn accidentally in the office or plant saw it between one and five times, while 15 percent said they saw it 10 times or more and 8 percent said they saw it six to 10 times. A reported 24 percent of the total surveyed said they never saw Net porn on the job.
But the survey also said that 16 percent of those responding knowingly hunted for Net porn on the job, while 40 percent said they saw their colleagues surfing for it. Correspondingly, the Cerberian/SonicWall survey said, half of those responding said they surfed the Net for personal reasons, equaling about four hours a week or nine full days a year.
The most common ways the workers saw the porn, Cerberian and SonicWall said, were popup ad windows (53 percent), false or misrepresented links (52 percent), misspelled URLs (48 percent), and autolinks in e-mails (23 percent).
"[We] compiled the results of this survey to give organizations a better understanding of how to balance the wants of employees and the needs of business," Cerberian chief executive Matt Mosnan said about the joint survey. "The results of this survey are clear in that 63 percent of employees are concerned about the ease of access of objectionable content at work."
Over half the respondents (52 percent) said their companies used no Internet filtering, while 38 percent said their companies used filters that blocked porn, gambling sites (27 percent), game sites (20 percent), and chat and instant messaging programs (16 percent).
Ten percent or less said their company filters blocked Web-based e-mail, online auction and other retail sites, sports, brokerage, entertainment, travel, and banking sites, while 1 percent or less said their company filters block news, health and medical, business, educational, and research sites.
The Cerberian/SonicWall survey also said 32 percent of the respondents saw colleagues surfing online gambling sites, 91 percent saw them shopping online, and 85 percent saw them surfing sports Websites.
SonicWall chief executive Matthew Medeiros said the survey demonstrates a larger awareness among workers and bosses alike that problems arise when the staff can surf the Net unfettered.
“While pornography is obviously the biggest concern, other surfing habits, from shopping to sports, are absorbing an increasing amount of employee attention inside organizations," Medeiros said. "Lost productivity as well as security issues and the abuse of network resources will continue to mount unless businesses formulate and enforce Internet access policies and internal controls.”
The survey still showed, however, that most of those responding said personal Web surfing was a positive part of their workday, saying they needed short breaks throughout the day to remain productive or boost their productivity. Only 7 percent of the respondents said personal Web surfing impacted their productivity negatively, while 38 percent said they were neutral on the question, the Cerberian/SonicWall report said.
Among the personal Web surfers on the job, 50 percent said they spent up to 10 percent of their on-the-job Net time surfing for personal reasons, with 33 percent saying they did it 11-25 percent of their online time, 12 percent saying 26-50 percent of their online time, 4 percent saying 51-75 percent of their online time, and 1 percent saying they did it most of their office online time (76-100 percent).
Most of the respondents (59 percent) said their companies had no rules about personal Web surfing, while 39 percent said their companies had such rules and 2 percent didn't know whether their companies had any such rules. But most of those who told survey questioners that they did surf the Web for personal use on the job said they went for news sites by a wide margin: 56 percent, 12 points higher than the next-frequent personal surfing category, research (44 percent).
Those who said they actively surfed porn on the job totaled 3 percent of the survey respondents.
