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The Pres. is the Problem

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by leasure suit larry

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What do you do as an administrator when you find the Pres. of the company searching for questionable material on company computers.

6 replies

by michael

It depends on what type of Pres, in what type of business. Is the person the sole owner of the company? Then they have every right to do it.

I think it also matters as to what they are searching for. Porn on the net? Leave em alone. Emails on workstations, once again, they probably have the legal right to do so.

by jaley

Unfortunately, I have to agree with the other person who replied to this message. If the person is the sole owner of this company, then it's kind of a different ballgame. They probably have the right to do it. But as an administrator, it feels like toe-stepping to a degree. Been there, done that. It's not a great situation.

by allen610

Yeah if the person is a sole ownership of the company then he/she can do whatever they want. The president does have a right to look at anyones email because it's company email and company files that are put on the server because the server is company property.

by tphurley

If I were that company president, I would worry about having 2 standards. If it ever goes to court that he is doing what corporate policy says no one should be doing, it will probably get very embarrassing in court. And your position will become untenable if you have to testify!

by al macintyre

There have been court cases where some employee was fired for violating some company policy. The employee sues the company for violating employment rights & libel & either wants job back or decent severence package, and certainly unemployment compensation because not fired for cause.

Defense includes laundry list of managers violating company policy. Even though the type of violation was different than what got the person fired, judges have ruled that violations by managers void their policy, so they can not now use this policy against lower echelon employees.

For example, one company had a policy that their company computers were to be used only for company related activity. Employee was fired for using computer to help plot betting on horses, football etc. Judge said that there was nothing wrong with this because upper management was using the computer to chart golf scores of liquid lunches & other things that also had nothing to do with the business, thus managment had voided their own policy.

by al macintyre

There are several approaches I have taken.

I sometimes give co-workers gift subscriptions, like at Christmas time, to magazines that are associated with prudent use of computers - both tips, and ethicsal usage. This has included the Pres.

I offer upper management & department leaders, especially new hires, briefings in how to use our data, how to ensure it remains integrity not messed up, how our security works.

If your problem is with some concept of illegal data on your computer system like porn or piracy, then perhaps you should check out the Discussion thread on Security regarding Excising Piracy ...

http://www.TechRepublic.com/forumdiscuss/thread_detail.jhtml?thread_id=15365

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