Firm bans workers from online auction website

Carter Holt Harvey workers have been banned from accessing the Trade Me website while at work.

The move follows a company review of internet use which found staff at the company's five pulp and paper mills were making "excessive use" of the online auction website.

Communications manager Robyn Orchard said large amounts of network bandwidth were being used and had the potential to slow internet access for employees accessing work-related sites.

"In this instance we saw an unusual number of hits on a site that couldn't reasonably be described as work-related," Ms Orchard said.

The company advised its staff last Tuesday that it intended to block access to the site.

Trade Me business manager Mike O'Donnell said Carter Holt Harvey was one of several companies he had heard of making such a move.

"Corporates restricting internet usage is nothing new. Some companies treat their staff as responsible adults. Some don't. It's nothing new," he said.

"Having the Carter Holt employees unable to access Trade Me will make virtually no difference at all to us ... If people are not allowed (to access Trade Me) they will find other things to do. The rates of people playing solitaire will probably increase."

Mr O'Donnell said he had heard that one of the companies whose head of IT had added Trade Me to their restricted list had his decision overturned by that company's managing director.

"It turned out that the managing director liked to spend his downtime browsing the plastic cars on Trade Me."

A growing number of companies are also banning access to email account sites such as Hotmail, as these can often be a way for viruses to find their way into a firm's computer systems.

- DAILY POST (ROTORUA)