Monitoring and Controlling Employee Use of Facebook in the Workplace

Over the past few years, Internet usage of social networks has become commonplace and Facebook in particular is experiencing explosive growth. The addictive nature of Facebook has resulted in personal use extending into the workplace where employee use and abuse of Facebook has become a particular problem. The risk of distributing proprietary content, non-compliance with regulatory requirements, improper use of company computing resources as well as productivity losses are all real threats to the employer. Prohibiting employees completely from using Facebook may not be an option as there are often legitimate reasons to allow controlled usage. Furthermore, Facebook has thousands of applications of which some may have perfectly legitimate uses while others are completely inappropriate for the workplace. The question remains, how can an employer monitor and control Facebook usage in the workplace and protect itself from potential inappropriate use.

FaceTime's Unified Security Gateway (USG) is a complete secure Web gateway; combining fine-grained Web application control and real-time communications security with content filtering and malware protection. USG provides the solution to employee use and abuse of Facebook in the office and provides the monitoring and control required while still meeting the needs of the employee. USG provides granular controls which include quota setting by employee, time, bandwidth and specific Facebook applications. With USG, companies can monitor time spent on Facebook, control usage and enforce corporate policies.

Read more about the Unified Security Gateway.