Social Network Site Facebook Costs Au Employers $5 Billion A Year

Social Network Site Facebook Costs Au Employers $5 Billion A Year

By Sharon Gaudin, InformationWeek, August 20, 2007

Workers at the office using social networking sites, like Facebook, are costing employers more than $5 billion a year and putting corporate networks at risk of attack, according to a new study.

The data is out of Australia, but a spokeswoman at security company SurfControl noted that country is ranked fifth among global Facebook users, coming in behind the United States. That, she pointed out, means the problem of lost time and network risk is even greater here in the U.S.

Added across the 800,000 businesses in Australia, one wasted hour a day adds up to a productivity loss of $5 billion annually for the Australian economy, according to the estimate.

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