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Content Filtering and Why It’s Important!
By George Bardissi, President Bardissi Enterprises
It’s Football Season, Are You Losing Employee Productivity
to Unnecessary Internet Surfing?
Every year sports endeavors costs employers, nationally,
hundreds of millions of dollars in lost productivity time
due to sports fans surfing the net during work time. To
those small business owners out there, please don’t feel
that you are excluded! Here are a few things to think about:
fantasy football, sports news, NCAA bracketing, ESPN, etc. I
know these are things almost every sports fan does; I know I
do. The question is when is it being done? Businesses have
the ability to control what their employees have access to
online.
The next thing I would ask is does your business have a
business or corporate policy on internet usage? I know, most
companies create one of these policies but most of the time
never do anything to enforce them! So if you are that owner
or manager out there think about this topic, what do you
want your employees to be able to do online during YOUR
company time? Things I would consider during this
brainstorming: online radio, sports and all things
associated, private e-mail, social networking sites
(Myspace, Facebook, Etc), music downloading, computer
screensavers, and the list goes on and on. Sometimes
companies may choose to consult their employees about this
topic and come up with a combined recommendation and
sometimes management likes to set the rules and put their
foot down. These things can really depend on what kind of
management style you embrace.
Once you, the business decisions maker, have determined
exactly what you feel should be your business policy on
computer and internet usage, you may feel there are things
that should be blocked from your employees online. The next
step for you is what we, in the technology world, like to
call internet content filtering! This solution gives a
company the ability to block web categories such as ADULT
SITES, CRIME, ENTERTAINMENT (which includes SPORTS),
PERSONAL(which includes sites such as PERSONALS & DATING and
SOCIAL SITES), SHOPPING( which includes sites such as EBAY),
COMPUTERS(which includes WEB-BASED E-mail, CHATTING such as
INSTANT MESSAGING), NEWS, SEARCH, RESEARCH, and so on.
Content filters give you the ability to block specific
sites that are not being blocked under your normal system
categories or unblock specific sites that are needed by your
company and are being blocked under a specific category.
Content filters come in a few different ways. You could get
a software based solution that has to be installed on every
computer on your network and then would have to be managed
on a system by system basis. This solution seems to be an
economical one. However, it is usually the most painful in
terms of managing including making changes to blocked and
allowed sites. The other direction to go in is having a
hardware device handle your content filtering across the
board on all internet traffic from all systems on your
network.
There are companies that specialize in content filtering
and have their own appliance or network unit that will do
this for you. If, your firewall is a more advanced unit such
as Watchguard or Sonicwall, then your network firewall might
have the ability to do this as well without your having to
invest in another physical unit. These devices are
manageable from any browser, such as Internet Explorer or
Mozilla Firefox, which are on your network and can be
applied given you have the proper username and password.
This solution, which may be a little more expensive than a
PC based software installed on every workstation, is a lot
easier to manage and make changes to because all you have to
do is make one change and it will reflect on your entire
network on every computer.
There is a solution that will fit practically any company
however the right content filter for your company will
depend on what kind of options you are looking for and the
size of your company. There are many other items that you
can get in terms of advanced functionality as part of your
content filtering such as automatic e-mails sent to you with
a report of content filtering activity or a manger override
password that will bypass the content filter if you need to
get to a side that is blocked by your filter and you have
manager access to your system. You should talk with your IT
vendor or technical person in terms of finding the right
technology solution to fit your needs.
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