Comments on: Blocking websites doesn’t have to be a bad thing

By: @Peterson.InsideWired

@Peterson.InsideWired — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 14:55:40 +0000

William your view of what is good to the organization is too broad. You should be specific because what is good to some maybe bad to others. Take for instance limiting Internet access in the workplace. This can be beneficial to small businesses but not to big companies. These two organizations have different environments. They are run and manage differently. They have diverse human resources and IT assets.

Yes, I agree with the “fair and balanced” thing. But we should also take into consideration those who will be affected. This is just a thought. We should have clearer and more precise ideas on how to properly block websites.

By: Sarah Martin

Sarah Martin — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 09:15:15 +0000

I think the approach Greg suggests is the most flexible – it might take more resources to check new sites but a flexible whitelist should work in situations where your workers need access to some sites only. In those cases, when your workers’ jobs require research, for example, a whitelist will hardly work because your workers will be searching with Google and accessing multiple sites only once and a block will prevent them from doing their jobs.

By: Gary Essex

Gary Essex — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 11:49:34 +0000

Flexibility is certainly the key. In most walks of life draconian decisions normally aren’t the right ones. In high pressure jobs it is important for employees to be able to relax and let off steam. The chats around the coffee machine or a quick phone call home to see how the kids are doing are normal part of corporate life.

Blocking access to social networks completely can be negative, however defining some core times when access is restricted will help keep employees focussed on their jobs, but opening up access again (say during the lunch hour) will help employees relax and be more productive in the afternoon.

By: William Goodings

William Goodings — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 07:02:56 +0000

It all comes down to what is good to the organization. If the company’s security and stability are compromise and malicious websites are the main perpetrators, then the business should implement a way to restrict Internet access – even if it disrupts research, sales, and marketing.

For me, blocking websites offer more benefits than harm but it should be “fair and balanced”. Big and multinational corporations already have Internet restriction policies, which should be emulated by their SME counterparts.

By: David Attard

David Attard — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 08:29:02 +0000

Its also important to be able to cater for the different needs of the different departments. For example, it is highly likely that the Marketing department will be making “productive” use of Social Networks whilst possibly other departments could be granted limited use of Social Networks. Just like you said, the correct attitude is necessary to make sure no friction is created – but that’s true in everything not just blocking websites

By: Greg Marin

Greg Marin — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 22:12:05 +0000

A flexible whitelist is so key to having a good blocking policy. Years ago, I worked at an inbound call center where we had web-blocking in place that was updated based on the amount of traffic a site received. If a site was being visited frequently enough, IT would check to see if the site was work related or not. This was a pretty effective way of shutting down sites that were eating up productivity.

At least, until the day ESPN.com got blocked and the employees grew extremely angry. Not because they were all sports fanatics, you see, but because our client was a major cable/satellite provider, and so we would often get calls asking about game availability or blackout restrictions – something that checking the channel’s website to investigate proved to be very helpful for.