Neowin.net

Ten percent of people visiting their marriage councillors have been blaming the internet for their marital problems. From online chat to too much porn surfing – the internet has become a compulsive activity for many people.

This news arises as the first online help is made available for people who are becoming addicted to the internet, and whose normal lives are falling apart due to their online fascination. The Relate group is now offering counselling and help for people in such situations, and they claim this is just the beginning of what will be a major problem in the future.

Countries which have successfully created the availability of DSL on a nationwide scale, like Germany, will develop problems like this quicker than others but the remaining nations will soon follow.

Also as a result of a great increase in the availability of the internet, today it was announced officially that the music industry is taking a huge loss as a result of file sharing (systems such as Morpheus and Kazza). It varies from country to country but the problem is now so big that the industry is saying it can’t continue with such a loss. The introduction of subscription-based download systems by many major record labels has been cited as too late, as it has been forecast that the use of these won’t be widespread for a long time.

The overall loss to the industry is five percent but some countries still go out and buy records. The UK and France haven't seen such a marked decline, but the UK only has 40% of homes online, while Germany has seen a huge reduction in records bought in shops.


News source: Silicon.com
News source: Reuters

Privacy advocates say they know of no major incidents so far of disciplinary action for IM abuse. But it may be just a matter of time.

As of last year, only about 20% of all instant messager accounts belonged to business users, according to the consulting firm Radicati Group. By 2004, the percentage is expected to increase to 50%.

Jupiter Media Metrix says instant messaging use in U.S. businesses more than doubled from 2.3 billion minutes in September 2000 to 4.9 billion minutes last September.

First marketed as toys for consumers, IM programs quickly pervaded the workplace as people installed them without asking permission, said Michael Gartenberg, research director at Jupiter Media Metrix.

"There was no planning and encryption built in," he said. "This started as an enthusiast tool for people chatting with each other one-on-one."

Even so, once in the workplace, employees found IM useful for fast communication with colleagues and clients.

The financial services industry first felt the need for advanced snooping software to monitor IM traffic because federal regulators require that all communications with clients be kept for auditing.

Though the Securities and Exchange Commission has yet to order that instant messages be kept, investment banking firm Thomas Weisel Partners decided it was better to be safe than sorry.

Last summer, the San Francisco firm blocked all IM traffic. But clients missed the convenience and, by the fall, the messager programs were back, said Pamela Housley, the firm's director of compliance.

Thomas Weisel Partners signed up for FaceTime's monitoring software, which runs on a computer on the firm's internal network, recording all IM traffic. Certain keywords can be defined to alert managers, or the traffic can simply be put into storage in case it's needed.

So far, there has been no need to inspect the data. And Housley said the company is not interested in reading every message.

"It's just easier to archive it all," she said. "I don't have the manpower to have somebody look at this all day long."

FaceTime also works with electronic archiving systems from companies like SRA International and Zantaz. It must be installed within a corporate network in order to capture all traffic that originates or is received by users of that network.

Earlier this month, White Plains, N.Y.-based Communicator signed up eight large financial institutions for its Hub IM, which tightly controls communications among customers and competitors with encryption and authentication by directing all traffic to Communicator's systems, the trusted third party.

But unlike FaceTime, all messaging occurs through a proprietary program — not a public system like AOL Instant Messenger.

The companies that make such products see lots of opportunity beyond finance.

"The technology can be applied to any market and any industry," said Gabriela Garner, marketing director for Zantaz. "In fact, we have received a lot of interest across the board in corporate America."

There's no reason not to think that instant message chats won't wind up as fodder in investigations. Stored e-mail has already played a role in probes involving the Clinton White House and Enron, to name a few examples.

Privacy advocates wonder, though, whether constant monitoring of simple chats might be taking paranoia too far.

"We know people do a certain amount of personal business at work," said Richard M. Smith, an Internet and privacy consultant. "A company has a legitimate interest in limiting that ... but if it's personal they don't have any right to listen in."

So far, the courts have yet to make any distinctions between instant messages and other forms of electronic communications, such as e-mail.

Though some argue that the technology deserves protection like telephone calls, instant messages are more likely to be treated like e-mail.

Employers typically issue guidelines and warnings against personal use of e-mail when company equipment and networks are involved.

"In the private sector, the law has been charitable to employers ... as there is a reasonable amount of notice," said Lee Tien, an Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney.

Customers of Zantaz reported a lot fewer e-mail jokes and goofing off when it began deploying its e-mail monitoring products, said Garner, the company's marketing manager.

"It changed the employee behavior. Their productivity went up," she said. "They were a little bit more careful with their communication. It will be the same with IM."