Despite its popularity, the famous social networking site is off-limits at work for a number of companies worldwide, which have blocked their employees’ access to it.
To limit the time wasted at work surfing the Net, some companies have chosen a radical method—blocking access to certain sites, with Facebook topping the list of these blacklisted sites. According to a study by OpenDNS, a provider of computer security and filtering solutions, the network founded by Mark Zuckerberg is the most blocked site in the world, with 23% of respondents blocking off access to it from work. The famous social networking site is not the only one to be in management’s sights. The top ten blacklisted sites listed by OpenDNS include MySpace, Youtube and Twitter, along with Hotmail, a dating site and eBay.
While some companies justify their decisions by citing the risks of bandwidth use to the company’s internal network, others do so out of concern for productivity and the fear that employees are spending too much time on “recreational” sites.
The efficacy of blocking measures has not been proven, however, and has even been questioned by a number of studies. Some consider that surfing the Web is an opportunity for employees to take a break, while others believe it would facilitate internal communication.