The misuse of the Internet and email are, unfortunately, one of the most costly problems that face a lot of businesses. While the actual physical act of surfing the Internet or sending and receiving personal emails may not directly cost your business a penny, a few users can spend literally hours surfing the net towards their own end or seemingly keeping their social lives alive using the work email service.

While some discretion is obviously advised, this misuse costs businesses billions of pounds every single year, and is often caused by either unclear codes of online conduct or through businesses not being aware they are able to track the actions of their employees while they are online. Some employees may claim this to be snooping but the knowledge that you are able and willing to monitor Internet activity is often enough to deter many potential offenders from accessing sites like Ebay (which has been cited as the single most visited site from people during working hours).

Web and email monitoring software can be added to a business IT network. The network administrator is usually then able to block specific sites during certain hours or even, where necessary, only allow access to very specific sites. Some businesses have caused upset by overdoing their monitoring but because of the potential financial cost of the misuse of the Internet, not to mention the potential security risk of accessing less desirable websites and opening joke emails, it can be prudent at least to have the capability to do so.