Company Computer & Internet Policy

Internet Browsing:
The computers are company property, even computers brought in by employees are subject to company policy.

•	No downloading of any programs from the Internet with the exceptions of updates for programs currently installed on the computer like Microsoft updates, Sun Java updates, Adobe Flash & Adobe Reader, anti-virus, company purchased or leased programs, etc. If in doubt; ask!
•	Computer updates are getting to be extremely critical because of all the spyware and phishing today. If you see that you need to install a Windows or Java or Adobe update, please attend to those as soon as possible. (Microsoft Internet Explorer version upgrades can be postponned till IT gives the approval.)
•	“Personal” anything must be kept to a minimum on company computers. Lunch breaks are not "Surfing Breaks."
•	“Chat Programs” like Yahoo Messenger or AIM or Microsoft Messenger are not permitted and should be removed immediately.
•	“Chat Rooms” and other types of forums unless related to company research and are company approved, are not permitted.
•	Social Networking (MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) or Peer to Peer (Limewire, Utorrent, etc.) sites are absolutely not allowed. 
•	No “Porno” or other forms of "Adult Only." Besides being offensive to employees and customers, it could be grounds for the company to be sued. We would hate for customers to think all we do is surf garbage.  This will be grounds for immediate termination.
•	No “Personal E-mail” at work except in times of family emergencies. (E-mail is the number one way to spread viruses especially from web based e-mail sites 
•	like Yahoo Mail.) If you are currently using your personal email for company business we need to have a company email account set up for you. Please notify us of that.
•	Web sites used for company business or to obtain company information are allowed. Please note any web address changes or additional related web sites so they can be added to the Whitelist or Company Approved list.
•	If you go to some web site that is blocked and that site is necessary to your job please inform the management. All others stay blocked. 

Software Piracy:
Software Piracy is a felony.  
•	NO program can be installed on more than one computer without multiply “Licenses” of some kind, with the exception of “Freeware” or in some cases “Shareware.”  If it does not say “Freeware” or "GPL" then it is not.  Nothing from companies like Corel or Microsoft or Norton are ever free!
•	Do not bring any software from home and install it on any company computer.  If you have done such on a company computer, we need to know that information before you and the company ends up in jail; regretfully “possession (or lack thereof) is nine tenths of the law.” Since some of the computers may be leased, not owned, by the company, these problems become even larger.
•	Do not install any programs from one company computer to any other company computer without specific permission.  This way we know we have appropriate licenses or enough copies to go around.
•	Just because it came from one of our "Jobbers" or "Suppliers" does not mean it is legal for us to use.  Only “Tutorials” or “Demos” or “Training” are probably legal under our franchises.  Burned CD ROM's are almost always a message that we don’t have a software license.
•	No company software is to be taken off site unless special permission is given and only then in cases of training.
•	No information about customer or the company except in the form of a backup is to leave the building.
•	We need to round up all software, CDs, disk, cables, and manuals.  This way we can determine what we do have and what we do not.  Please check around your work area and gather all these things up. It is sad how much money has been spent on things we already own.

Backups and Archiving:
•	If you have documents or other such items that are “important” please let us know on your personal computer and ask if they are in some kind of backup. Some programs on the computers have internal backups onto other drives, floppy disks, or flash drives, please do those every other day or so.  Keep mulitple copies backed up onto CD ROM or DVD. 

Personal or Visiting Computers:
•	NO computer can be plugged into the company computer system or attached to the wireless system without inspection by the IT Department first and approved. 
•	Personal or Visiting Computers:
•	General rule of thumb "If it is confidential, then it never leaves company property except in the form of a backup."
•	NO cell phones, PDA's or Blackberry's are to be plugged in the network.
•	NO Flash drives (thumb drives) can be plugged into any network other than the company network.

Please let us know of any computer needs or problems.  It might be software or hardware, even something simple like a new mouse pad. 

We did not get to where we are now over night and it will take some time to get where we really need to be. 

Thank you for your patience and understanding,
The Management.