Employees to be billed for personal Internet use?

Exinda Networks claims to have developed a unique system that allows a company to monitor exactly which Web sites are visited by each individual employee and how much bandwidth has been used -- in terms of a cash loss to the employer.

Con Nikolouzakis, director of Exinda Networks, said the URL and bandwidth monitoring system was designed to ensure employees can be held responsible for the cost of misused bandwidth and time.

"If you use your office computer for internet banking and booking theatre tickets, you're fine. If you choose to use it to download illegal software, research personal interests or other non-business uses then you could be issued with a 'please explain' and a bill for the costs of the bandwidth and time you wasted," said Nikolouzakis.

According to Nikolouzakis, bandwidth-abusers can have access to certain sites blocked or their bandwidth could be throttled, which would significantly slow that individual's access to the undesirable Web site. Additionally, the employee could be presented with a bill.

"Theoretically individual employees could be charged a fee for non-business related internet usage on a monthly basis if an employer wanted to get tough on staff abusing their Web access but didn't want to block them altogether," said Nikolouzakis.

However, not everyone agrees that charging employees for 'personal' bandwidth is a good idea.

James Turner, industry analyst for security & services at Frost & Sullivan, said that charging employees for personal bandwidth usage would stir up a hornet's nest because bandwidth is relatively cheap and employees get a "morale boost" from having some freedom to surf at work.

"Most employees sign an Acceptable Internet Usage policy when they join a new company. After that, there is a level of trust between employer and employee. Companies like Computer Associates already have software that can measure an individual's bandwidth usage, so the technology isn't new and across the market there is not a huge demand," said Turner.

However, Turner did agree that there is a need for employers to spot the employees that regularly abuse the system.

"The tiny minority of bandwidth abusers are most likely downloading illegal material (such as pirated movies) and their employers need to be able to detect and stop this for anti-piracy reasons. No company wants to be involved in trafficking stolen goods and storing illegal digital material is an extension of this," said Turner.