Supermarket Chain Freezes Internet Access
Every company has their own way of dealing with internet abuse in the workplace and their own methodology to keep repeat offences low.
One Kansas City operator of 28 supermarkets and pharmacies, Balls Food, seem to have hit upon the ideal model for them. Their stores are the very model of how a network – and its users – should behave. Not that the users really ever had a choice.
Balls Food’s remarkable network usage, documented in an audit performed recently by Networks Unlimited, is the product of restrictive policies that grant Internet access to employees on a case-by-case and site-by-site basis.
“I’m relieved at the audit results,” says CFO Mike Beal, who stands firmly behind the policy.
Harry Segal, president of Networks Unlimited and a veteran of dozens of usage audits was equally surprised. “These results are unusually good.”
Usage audits look for exposure in four areas: productivity loss, legal liability, bandwidth consumption and data security.
Balls Food did well in all four. Most users can’t get to shopping, auction or sports websites, so there’s little lost productivity. Likewise, the inability to access objectionable content minimises legal exposure. Unable to connect to Internet radio streams or download multimedia files, bandwidth is preserved. Finally, spyware, Trojans, viruses and keystroke loggers are kept out through aggressive e-mail filtering and web download prohibitions, assuring the security of sensitive data.
“If we had an open Internet policy, our problems would be much worse,” says Lance Fischer, Balls Food’s network systems manager. “Our policies and practices are well-established, known by every employee with a computer and strictly enforced”.
