Do your employees use your computers, communications equipment and ISP account to browse the web and send email? If they do, you need to develop an Internet Usage Policy because:
- An employer can be held liable when an employee uses the employer's Internet access and intranet facilities to infringe third-party rights, harass, threaten, or for further unlawful purposes. By providing a clear Internet Usage Policy, you will provide guidance to your employees and reduce inappropriate employee Internet uses—uses that might expose you, the employer, to liability.
- If you have an Internet Usage Policy and an employee does something
prohibited by the policy—for example, transmits copyrighted software
without the permission of the copyright owner, or uses the company
email system to sexually harass another employee—you may reduce your
liability as an employer for that employee's prohibited activities.
- If you do email and Internet-use monitoring of your employees, you
should inform your employees of this monitoring and get their consent
to protect yourself from breach of privacy claims by the employees.
This policy should make it clear to employees that the computers and communications equipment belong to the employer and are to be used for work-related purposes only (not for downloading images from Playboy or playing games).
