Using Content Filtering in Business Environments

You might think that online children need to have their online activities regulated and monitored, but that's just not the case. Almost all large companies-and increasingly, smaller companies as well-use some type of content filtering software to stop employees from venturing to all corners of the Internet on company time.

In the business world, content filtering is implemented for two main reasons. The first is an attempt to help reduce inefficiency-it's been estimated that Internet-surfing employees costs American companies billions of dollars annually in lost productivity. The second is to mitigate the potential for litigation and lawsuits resulting from workers being exposed to objectionable content on company premises.

The degree to which a company filters its employees' Internet activities varies greatly from one company to the next. Some filter all non-work-related sites; others selectively block only objectionable materials like pornography, hate literature, and any type of illegal content. Given the popularity of web-based e-mail and instant messaging programs, many companies block access to these services as well, or limit their use to certain times of the day only (for example, at lunch hour or break times).

Where standalone content filtering features like those found in Windows Vista are an ideal solution for implementing control over a small number of computers, businesses typically install server-based filtering programs that work in conjunction with proxy servers to control employee Internet access in a centralized manner. For details on popular content filtering programs that work with proxy servers like Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server, see http://www.microsoft.com/isaserver and http://www.isaserver.org/software/ISA/Content-Security.