Ever get the feeling you're being watched?

NEWS By John Borland and Will Sturgeon A spate of high-profile workplace scandals involving web or email abuse have seen companies step up their efforts to monitor their staff's email and web surfing habits. But technology companies Macrovision and Websense claim companies still aren't doing enough. They are urging employers to get tough on all employees abusing the office network - whether it be for browsing porn or just hogging bandwidth with lengthy downloads. Brian Dunn, senior vice president of business development at Macrovision, said: "We're making the basic assumption that a high percentage of downloading is done at work, because that's where the bandwidth is." Macrovision and Websense have teamed up to offer a service that will root out all MP3s, movie clips, games and other copyrighted material on employees' computers. Its scope ranges from disabling peer-to-peer applications like Kazaa to identifying pornography, music or movies on individual hard drives. The deal, and particularly Websense's upcoming hard-drive monitoring software, marks another potentially significant curtailment of employees' online freedoms in the workplace. Software has given employers substantial ability to monitor email and control Web surfing. The new software will expand a company's ability to control what happens on an employee's hard drive and could be welcome news to many employers, who are looking for ways to avoid liability for employees' copyright infringement using company property. Already one US company has settled out of court with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for $1m (£600,000), after it was accused of allowing its employees to trade songs on an internal network. John Borland writes for News.com