NetSTAR

TOKYO January 14, 2010

　TOKYO—January 14, 2009—NetSTAR, Inc., Japan’s premier developer of URL filtering product technologies and services, today announced the release of the sixth annual “Survey of Office Internet Use”.

　This survey investigates the administration and use of the Internet in the workplace, and it has been conducted by NetSTAR every year since 2004. In this, the sixth annual survey, 824 executives and employees working at small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with less than 300 employees were surveyed. The primary results of this survey are summarized below.

1) Many of the executives of SMEs believe that people are basically good and tolerate private Internet use by employees.
　The survey results show that executives have observed private Internet use in the workplace (54%) or during break times (69%), but only 33% responded that they would like to stop or reduce private Internet use, while 67% responded that “it’s not a problem at the current level,” or “it's not particularly necessary to stop it.” In contrast, more than half of employees responded that they view non-work-related sites on average “less than 10 minutes a day," which is generally less time than executives imagined, which shows that employees are exercising self-control.

2) Private Internet usage can be broadly defined as “impulsive” or “purpose driven,” and there is an overlap between sites viewed for work and private use
　There are two trends in private Internet use during work hours and during break time: “impulsive” viewing in which the user impulsively views some interesting news item or search results, and “purpose driven” viewing, such as searching for a place to eat lunch or making a reservation for a trip. Many sites used for work, such as portal sites and Wikipedia, are also used for private purposes, so some viewing restriction scheme is necessary.

3) There is a need for concrete controls, such as maintaining logs or filtering, to restrict inappropriate private Internet use by some employees
　There were inappropriate levels of private Internet use as well, and 6% of respondents answered that they had “experienced private use exceeding more than 4 hours a day.” While the number of executives that considered “issuing a ban on private Internet use” or “setting rules” was enough to curb this activity was quite high, the employees responded that without specific controls such as “keeping an access log" or “introducing URL filtering,” private Internet use cannot be restrained. In offices where employees each have their own computers, the intervals of private Internet use were longer than in offices where employees shared a computer, and the tendency towards “impulsive” viewing was greater, and it is also noteworthy that there were differences in reasons for private Internet use, usage time, and websites used between managers and employees, non-regular employees and regular employees.

　With the potential for virus infections, data leaks, and other problems, it is clearly becoming increasingly difficult to base management of Internet viewing in the office on trust between management and labor. Executives who use the Internet in their businesses will have to adopt effective, high-profile measures, such as filtering or log collection and analysis, to control inappropriate Internet use and its associated damage by some employees.
　NetSTAR will continue to contribute to creating a more secure Internet connectivity environment by applying the knowledge acquired from this survey to research and development of filtering and to raising awareness among our customers.

Survey Background
　While computers with an Internet connection have become indispensable to business, giving employees unfettered Internet access poses a huge risk to corporations in terms of maintaining productivity, managing information assets, and preserving network security. NetSTAR's purpose in conducting this survey was to understand the awareness of executives and the realities in the office and clearly identify the issues of Internet use faced by management, especially in medium-size SMEs.

Survey Methods
　This survey was conducted by Macromill Inc., between 8 December and 9 December 2009 at the request of NetSTAR. A Web-based survey was used. The target population was executives and employees of mid-size SMEs with less than 300 employees who use the Internet on a computer at work. There were 412 valid responses from executives and 412 valid responses from employees, for a total of 824 valid responses.

Results and Comments on Primary Survey Items (Graphs in Japanese Only)
Many executives are concerned about the risks associated with Web access, but many of them do not fully grasp the realities of the situation
- Generally speaking, concern about the risks of Web access in the work place—such as malicious software infiltration, data leaks—is higher among executives than employees. In addition, risk awareness among employees was higher among the general staff than among administrators (managers), revealing a difference between mangers and non-managers.  In particular, concern regarding “information leaks” was about 10 percentage points higher among the general staff than the managerial staff, and it was notable that managerial staff responded “not particularly relevant” more than any other group. （See Graph 1 and Graph 2.）
- More than half of the executives do not feel that they fully grasp the situation with Web access within their organization. In fact, the larger the organization, the higher the percentage of executives who think that “it is difficult to fully grasp the situation with employee Web access.” （See Graph 3 and Graph 4.）
- For methods of accessing Web access conditions within the company, “going and seeing for myself” received the highest number of responses (30.4%), showing that most executives rely on intuition and chance when accessing Web access. However, the larger organizations tended to receive support from filtering and other tools.  （See Graph 5 and Graph 6.）

A large majority of executives tolerate private Internet use because they trust their employees, a high percentage responding “There is private Internet use.”
- More than half of executives have observed “private Internet access” among employees during business hours as well as during break time. Only a few executives responded that “employees are not engaging in private Internet use at all.” More than 70% of executives expressed concern that employees are engaging in private Internet use out of view of the executive, and this trend increased with the size of the organization. （See Graph 7, Graph 8, and Graph 9.）
- However, only about 30% of executives considered eliminating or reducing private Internet use amongst employees, showing that a great many executives condone private Internet use by default. This trend increases as the size of the corporation decreases. (See Graph 10)
- In most cases, the executives condone private Internet use among employees “if it is within reason” (80.3%), showing an underlying confidence in employees. - In contrast, 63.1% of employees responded that private Internet use is acceptable “if it is within reason,” showing that the number of employees who feel guilty over private Internet use or perceive the risks is very small. （See Graph 11 and Graph 12.）

The amount of time spent on private Internet use by employees is within the limits estimated by executives; however it is vital that executives adopt measures to deal with that small number of employees who spend an inordinate amount of time on private Internet use
- According to their own estimates, the majority of employees spend less time on private Internet use in comparison to executive estimates. However, 12.9% of employees responded that they spend “more than 1 hour” per day on private Internet use, exceeding executive estimates. While the majority of employees live up to the tacit confidence of executives, appropriate measures must be taken against that small number of employees engaging in inordinately long sessions of private Internet use. In addition, the smaller the organization, the more time on average spent on private Internet use, and executives are aware of this tendency. There was a tendency of some groups of employees based on rank to either indulge in a lot of or a little private Internet use. （See Graph 13, Graph 14, and Graph 15.）
- Employees with their own computers tend to spend more time on average on private Internet use than those who share a computer. (See Graph 16)
- About 30% of employees responded that they have at some time “spent more than 1 hour in a day on private Internet use.” Again, the smaller the organization the larger this percentage tends to be. （See Graph 17 and Graph 18.）
- The reason cited for not engaging in private Internet use was that work was too busy rather than the existence of rules or other external forces. (See Graph 19)

Reasons cited for personal Internet use cluster around “change of pace” and “not enough work to do,” showing a difference in awareness between executives and employees
- Many executives (64.7%) believe that “the reason for private Internet use” is that employees want a “change of pace”; however, 59.2% of employees responded that the reason was a “not enough to work to do,” revealing a slight variance between the two groups. Within the employees group, managers tended to respond “if I discover an interesting site,” while general staff tended to respond “if friends or colleagues recommend an interesting site,” and non-regular employees tended to respond “when my boss is not around,” showing a disparity between employees with different ranks. In general, employees with “exclusive use of a computer” tended to engage in private Internet use more so than those who shared a computer. （See Graph 20, Graph 21, and Graph 22.）

During regular work hours, most private Internet use fell into either the “impulsive” category or “purpose driven” category, and many of the sites visited for private purposes are also used for work purposes.
- “Impulsive” private Internet use is defined as viewing “search results unrelated to the original purpose" and “Interesting news items," and there was no difference in the responses between different times of the day. In addition, the tendency toward “impulsive” viewing when using a search engine was greater for employees who had exclusive use of a computer. （See Graph 23 and Graph 24.）
- “Impulsive” private Internet use during work hours, such as “searching for keywords of personal interest,” was notable, but during break times, the “purpose driven” private Internet use, such as “collecting information on products or services of personal interest" and “collecting information or making reservations for personal travel," tended to increase. （See Graph 25 and Graph 26.）
- Many of the sites that are popular destinations for private Internet use, such as Yahoo!, Google, and Wikipedia, are also useful for work. In addition, there was a great disparity between men and women in their viewing of shopping sites, such as rakuten, kakaku.com, and amazon, and communications sites such as 2Channel, mixi, and ameba blog. Here as well, the tendency to view these sites was greater among employees with exclusive use of their computer, particularly of shopping sites such as rakuten, kakaku.com and communications sites such as 2Channel, mixi, and ameba blog.（ See Graph 27, Graph 28, and Graph 29.）
- The percentage of employees who have posted to a site of personal interest from their computer at work was 21.8%. The smaller the organization, the larger percentage of personal postings. The tendency was also greater among employees who had exclusive use of their computer. （See Graph 30, Graph 31, and Graph 32.）
- Of employees who viewed sites of personal interest before work hours or on a break with the intention of viewing it “just a little while” but who ended up viewing it more than “a little” were 42.2%. This percentage also tended to be higher among employees with exclusive use of their computer.（See Graph 33 and Graph 34.）

Methods used by executives who want to curb private Internet use are not very effective
- Of executives who responded that they would like to curtail or cut back private Internet use, 55.8% said they would “issue a notice" banning private Internet, while 45.1% said that they would “make rules.” However, when asking employees “which company measures would reduce private Internet use,” 54.6% responded “keeping an access log,” while 44.6% responded “adopting URL filtering,” revealing a difference between those measures considered effective by executives and those that are effective with employees. Among employees, there was a large difference between managers and non-managers in receptiveness to different methods of restricting private Internet use. （See Graph 35 and Graph 36.）

About NetSTAR, Inc, and URL Lists
　NetSTAR specializes in the development of URL filtering software and services, and in the collection, categorization, and delivery of URL lists. NetSTAR URL lists are used in a number of market-leading products like InterSafe WebFilter by Alps System Integration Co., Ltd., and InterScan WebManager by Trend Micro Incorporated.  Recognized for its high performance and low false positive rate, our products are number one (*1) among large companies with strict quality requirements, including approximately 60% of prefectural governments, 40% of central governments, and 40% of the companies in the Nikkei Excellent Company Ranking. We also have a greater than 40% share of the market nationwide. (*2)
　NetSTAR's URL lists are now being used in security appliance products and routers for small- and medium-size businesses, and many individual customers are using them through our home-use filtering services. Over the years, NetSTAR has gained much recognition for the broad applicability of its individual URL lists as well as the quality and reliability of its collection, categorization, and delivery processes. As the defacto industry standard, NetSTAR’s URL lists for filtering services have been adopted by all mobile phone operators in Japan, which are required to provide filtering services under the Internet Control Law. (*3)
http://www.netstar-inc.com/
*1. Based on NetSTAR's research *2. according to Fuji Chimera Research Institute *3. we distribute new lists daily for use in the filtering systems of NTT DoCoMo, KDDI, Softbank Mobile, WILLCOM, and EMOBILE.

* NetSTAR is a registered trademark of NetSTAR, Inc. Other product and company names are the registered trademarks of their respective companies.