The legal risks of uncontrolled IM use Everyone loves instant messaging, the chat-cum-presence tool of choice of the masses. And that love extends to the workplace...IM should overtake email as the preferred method of business communication by the second half of 2010, an IDC survey found last year. But IM can create enormous headaches for their employers. We have …
It seems to me that the key weakness in the argument is that IM is effectively ONLY a business tool rather than a social one. For instance, technology exists to record everything that is said 'at the watercooler' so should employers do this and act upon anything that is said?
My company is heavy user of IM and it is a very useful tool for remote workers. It is especially useful to be able to record conversations (as an end user) so they can be reviewed later and important nuggets of information saved somewhere more permanent. However, just like watercooler chat, the conversations are mixed with personal comments, witticisms, complaints about the software, the clients, the vendors etc.
Employees are not generally work-robots. The few that I have met are rubbish at their jobs. Work has to be at least partly a social activity to be productive. I'm all for ensuring that employees do not harass each other, but is it really appropriate for a bunch of employees (say testers) to be griping about how buggy some software is as they go about their business of testing it?
More IM use than email within 18 months? Really? Does anyone work for a company that uses IM? I don't know of any outside of those offering technical or on-line sales support.
I've only used IM twice - both times in a tech support context where it works quite well. Never really seen the point otherwise. But then, I'm an old fart.
"but is it really appropriate for a bunch of employees (say testers) to be griping about how buggy some software is as they go about their business of testing it?"
No, it's not appropriate. In the sense that it's not professional. But people are people, and they will bitch about stuff. Difference with IM is that it's all logged, so be careful out there...
Software and Consultancy house.
Heavy IM (Pidgin, etc) and VOIP (Skype, etc) user for internal comms (rivalling, if not beating, email already); not so much with clients, although Skype is sometimes used.
Only advice I have is not to use MSN Messenger. It suffers from virus attacks and has intrusive adverts, use Pidgin instead.
"but is it really appropriate for a bunch of employees (say testers) to be griping about how buggy some software is as they go about their business of testing it?"
Shock! Horror! Someone dares to comment on their job in a manner unacceptable to their corporate overlords! Someone who might, even, be speaking the truth! Unacceptable! Terminate their employment!
Perhaps, if companies weren't so unaccountable for poor products, unfair business practices, profiteering at the cost health and safety, willing to cust corners to save costs, unfair on their employees in a myriad different ways; or even if their were just PLAIN HONEST then this would be a non-issue.
Never mind the truth, eh? we'll just silence those we don't like.
Heads up, corporate world, if you keep treating your employees like dumb robots sooner or later you will face rebellion, public humiliation and ultimately; collapse under the weight of your own convoluted, self-destructive policies.
(On an aside, I work for a large corporation and we use internal and external IM constantly)
I use OTR for all the IM conversations I have regularly, it means that no one can prove what I have or have not said and there is no record kept by me or anyone else.
Sometimes you need to be able to have a good moan to a trusted colleague or friend, and you don't want the manglement to know about it.
Trying to ban this sort of usage is going to be difficult.
One of the signs of a new regime... "IM" as opposed to "the IM"? I am rather fond of the google, but not so fond of the email. We can call it Register now.
Don't allow egress anything, unless it's through a proxy. Piggybacks on HTTP, you say? The IDS/IPS filters could be written by a talented monkey. We must allow business to do its business, you say? Ahh, the crux of it...
The email has evolved such that the balance between its value as a business tool and weight of the associated risk has tipped toward the former, as security has caught-up. The IM will get there; if it is useful for business, security will catch-up. As per usual, there's a cost to doing business.
I strapped this comment to the leg of a swallow, which did fly to the home of Register. Both I and Register inspected the swallow, both laden and unladen, for signs of disease, upon egress and ingress. African when it left, European as it arrived, if you must know (for customs purposes).
This article doesn't serve the purpose i was expecting and it feel somewhat ad-like. There is no information about what the legal requirements for IM are - just a warning about what will happen if you are sued in relation to an employees conduct on IM. The thing I would have loved to have seen in this article would be what are the legal implications of people entering into an implied contractual agreeement over IM.
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