www.experience.com
What’s more, you might not know you’re under the
eye until it’s too late. About 20 percent of employers
that snoop don’t publicize the fact.
calls from competitors on the same
day that Boatscape.com laid off some staff triggered
suspicion among executives, says Peter Wiggenhauser,
23, a former employee of the Boston-based start-up.
“They went back and read our email and tried to fig
ure out who had been sending messages to competi
tors. First the CEO asked us about certain emails. A
week or so later, the CEO questioned us about joke
emails we had sent to each other,” says Wiggenhauser.
“It was an eye-opener.”
If your supervisor reads your personal email, you
might blush or feel indignant. But it could also cost
you your job. What’s deemed unfit for the workplace
is the boss’s call and can range from off-color jokes
and chain letters to profanity or pornography.
Consequences also span the map, ranging from
warnings to docked pay to outright dismissal. This
year, the New York Times Company, Xerox, and Dow
Jones each fired upwards of 20 employees for what
they saw as inappropriate Internet or email use. It’s
an issue that is even more relevant for the many
whose office and home lives have merged (e.g., hav
ing social lives at the office or working from home).
In this gray area, simply knowing whether your com
pany monitors is vital to protecting yourself.
according to Paul Tobias, chairman of the
National Employee Rights Institute, it’s often to an
employer’s advantage to be truthful about monitor
ing. So talk to your boss, the human resources
department, and even the IT folks to learn about
your company’s monitoring habits. And find out
whether your company turns off the monitoring soft
ware during times you’re allowed to use the Net, such
as breaks and lunchtime, advises Deborah Pierce,
staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The larger the company, the more likely it is to moni
tor its employees, says the AMA, with financial com
panies taking the prize for the most snooping. (Many
small firms simply can’t afford a person whose sole
job is to browse through their colleagues’ email.)
Understanding what’s on your company’s radar
screen is key to ensuring you’re not next on the surf
ing hot seat. “The absolute no-nos are visiting porn
sites and sending email that could be construed as
sexual harassment or that contains racial epithets,”
says Pierce. Resumes, criticism of supervisors, and
foul language are also often taboo. And employers
aren’t just checking out the content, they’re also
watching the clock. “Time hijackers,” like online
auctions, news sites, and sports pages, are often out
of bounds at firms worried about limited band
width and productivity.
Most companies offer a little leeway for personal
email and surfing, so the key is common sense.
“Somebody might go online to check the location of
a movie theater. It’s not likely that incidental usage
is going to be an issue,” says Anne Crowley, a
spokesperson for Fidelity Investments, which moni
tors its 30,000-plus employees. “What we’re talking
about is where it’s obvious that more time is being
spent on personal business than business purposes.”
if yOLIT company monitors web use—or if
you don’t know for sure—you’re best option is to
limit your surfing. But if you can’t resist taking a
peek at your stocks, there are several other steps you
can take. Don’t rely on the delete key or trash cans—
companies save backup copies of your files, email,
and sites surfed. Instead, try services that hide
where you’re surfing (like the Window Washer at
Anonymizer.com); scramble your email messages
with encryption (Hushmail.com, Pretty Good
Privacy, and S/Mime all will do the job); and set up
an account on Hotmail or Yahoo! for personal email.
None of these is foolproof, however. Employers
might still be able to access messages sent from per
sonal email accounts. If your company is using key
stroke software, which records every word you type,
nothing will keep your activities and prose out of
your manager’s reach. The safest things to do, says
Pierce, are to bring your own laptop to work for
personal matters and keep separate email accounts
for work and personal business. If you receive an
Read about pending electronic-monitoring legis
lation at www.experience.com/bigbrother.
email that your company would frown upon, don’t
respond to it, she adds.
Above all, exercise common sense: “Before you
send out that email message, review it,” says Pierce.
“Think about how you’d feel if the email was posted
to the front page of the paper.” O
Susan Countryman is a Boston-based freelance writer.
She has no comment about her email habits at work.