Sun Sep 22, 8:25 AM ET By Andrea Orr

PALO ALTO, Calif. (Reuters) - Just about any employer with enough money to provide workers an Internet connection is also spending a little extra to prevent them from visiting non-work Web sites.

Yet many have no idea where those workers are whiling away most of the hours between nine and five.

A recent survey found that workers frequent online news sites more often than things like pornography, gambling, or even shopping sites -- and they consider news one of the most addicting things available on the Internet.

"Initially we saw the most abuse in pornography and gambling sites, now we are seeing more time spent on shopping and news sites," said Harold Kester, Chief Technology Officer of Websense Inc which conducted the survey.

Websense is a San Diego company that makes software to help companies monitor employees' surfing patterns and block them from visiting, or at least from spending excessive amounts of time on sites that are taking them away from their jobs. But its survey showed that the boss does not always know the ways workers slack off.

Some 23 percent of those workers surveyed said they considered news the most addictive Web content, compared with 18 percent who reported pornography, eight percent for gambling and six percent online auctions. Overall news came in a very close second to online shopping, which 24 percent of those surveyed said they considered addictive.

Yet these employee patterns did not reflect employers' concerns. The majority of workers surveyed -- some 67 percent -- said they were allowed them to use their office Internet connections to read news. That compared with just 37 percent who were allowed access to shopping and auction sites, and a slim two percent of respondents who said they were allowed to visit gambling and porn sites.

Kester, of Websense, said these findings were more compelling when placed in the context of the rest of the survey, which showed workers spent upward of 20 percent of their time surfing the Web. On average, those surveyed said they spent 8.3 hours a week on Internet sites that had no relation to their jobs; most said they would sooner give up coffee than the Internet.

SurfControl , a British company that also makes Internet monitoring products, says that employers are sometimes so focused on blocking access to content like porn and racism which could carry a legal liability, that they overlook the more obvious drains on worker productivity.

"I think a lot of companies to react to the current vogue, and now a lot of their concerns center on pornography and gambling sites," said SurfControl Chief Executive Officer Steve Purdham. "But (concern about) news sites is starting to grow, especially sports news and financial news. A lot of people have a personal interest in seeing how their stocks are doing, and somewhere around the world, there is always some kind of global sports event going on."

Companies such as Websense and SurfControl do not dictate how employers monitor the Internet but allow them discretion in deciding which sites to block. While they say many companies, especially those in more creative fields, are pretty liberal with respect to online news sites, others have determined news has no place on the job.

"One of our clients is a large food distribution company and they have a lot of Internet terminals at dock loading stations and they really don't want their employees looking at the news," said Kester, of Websense. "It is just not part of their job."

-- Anonymous, September 23, 2002

Answers

I didn't know this place had become an official news place. *grin*

-- Anonymous, September 23, 2002

Harrumph!

-- Anonymous, September 23, 2002