In-House Counsel

Big Brother or the Green Dam Youth Escort

Green_Dam_-_Youth_Escort.doc

When I joined Cisco 13 years ago I did not know anything about IT. Only a few years later I realized that someone is tinkering with the software on my computer. My laptop will suddenly go slow and I would not be able to do anything for a while. I then found out that there is such a thing as IT and that in fact this is an awesome and powerful organization. It turns out that they have installed on my PC a piece of software that allowed them to make sure that I got the latest and the greatest in Cisco approved software. I never knew what software is being installed and why. Sometimes I would be given an option to delay the installation and sometimes not. This annoying piece of software started me thinking on what I would do if I were in control of this marvel. I would be the king of the universe! By checking out the emails that my colleagues are sending I could be ahead of the game at work, I could get some juicy bits on their personal lives. I could even create an army of bots that would be at my beck and call to attack any of the people who were not nice to me! And then I got scared. Then I thought again, whenever you start working for a company you do give away certain level of privacy. The company has every right to protect the usage of its resources and under certain circumstances can even snoop on your email. After that I ignored this obnoxious software and went on with my life…

Full post as published by Cisco High Tech Policy Blog on June 10, 2009 (boomark / email).