Australia is 18 months behind the US in the thought process behind workplace monitoring, still seeing pornography as the main type of content that needs managing, according to a visiting electronic surveillance expert.

Internet filtering company SurfControl claims that porn formed the origins of fear about Internet use in the workplace between 18 months and two years ago in the US and employers worried about the implications of porn browsing about 12 months in the UK. However, porn and the legal liability of sexual harassment is still at the forefront of the Australian employer's attitude to Web content.

Whilst the downside of personal Net use in the workplace -- such as lost productivity, security issues, restricted bandwidth and legal liability -- has everything to do with Web content, -different content is a different risk at different moments of time," according to SurfControl CEO Steve Purdham.

For example, the impact of the amount of people who went to the Web to watch live footage and find news updates on the recent terrorist attacks in the US would have been quite dramatic on local businesses - and as a result Purdham believes there will be a transition in Australia away from the belief that porn is the main culprit that encourages cyberbludging.

This greater understanding by the local market of the risk associated with Internet content will also come as more businesses extend Internet access across the board in the workplace, according to Purdham.

In the US, 80 percent of people have Internet access in the workplace, compared to 43 percent of Australians. -As more and more employees have Internet access the more employers will look into what it is being used for," Purdham said. -There's no such thing as generic bad content on the Internet."

Whilst Australia may be a bit behind the times in its understanding of the risk of Web content, it and the Asia Pacific rim are accelerating more than elsewhere across the globe in terms of the growth of the Internet security software market.

According to SurfControl statistics, there will be a 68 percent compound annual growth over the next five years, compared to less than 40 percent in the US.

And whilst the pace of corporate funding for security protection has slowed in the US on the back of the economic downturn, Australia is looking very good in comparison.

-In Australia, with the exception of global companies, there's still tremendous economic buoyancy," Purdham said, adding that the situation in the US and Afghanistan is heightening awareness of online security.

As a result, SurfControl, with two US-based offices and two in the UK as well as one in Holland, Germany, Austria and Sydney, Australia, is looking at ways of accelerating its expansion into the Asia-Pacific region.

The next major market opportunity will be Japan followed by Singapore, using Australia as -a solid beachhead to grow from," Purdham said.

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