Troll by Websense on Cyber Monday

This column was originally published on RealMoney on Nov. 28 at 12:29 p.m. EST. It's being republished as a bonus for TheStreet.com readers.

Let's start with the obvious. The Internet has transformed the workplace. Indeed, information relating to almost any business undertaking can be found instantly by the estimated 68 million U.S. employees who currently access the Internet at work.

Unfortunately, non-work-related content -- like online shopping, pornography and gambling -- is also readily accessible and can be a major distraction.

This fact is at the forefront of every manager's mind today, as the Thanksgiving weekend is over and people are returning to work, set to start shopping online as the American consumer now celebrates Cyber Monday.

That's where the solutions from San Diego-based Websense(WBSN) come in. The company provides employee Internet management products that enable businesses to analyze, report and manage how their workforce uses the Internet, its network and computers.

The market for Web-content filtering is growing at a 23% clip annually and is expected to reach $1 billion by 2008, according to IDC, and that's played a part in the run this stock has had over the past couple of years, now standing near an all-time high.

And it's no wonder. According to a recent study, 34 million U.S. employees are guilty of so-called cyberslacking, spending time surfing the Web for personal usage while at the office. Further, Internet misuse in the workplace costs American corporations more than $178 billion annually in lost productivity.

Besides the work interruption, personal Web use also can increase a company's security risks, clog network bandwidth, and even create a potential legal liability for the organization.

In an increasingly stringent regulatory environment -- including issues ranging from privacy to corporate governance -- it's even more important that a company controls the flow of information within and around its business.

Traditionally, organizations have attempted to mitigate legal liability, waning productivity and choked bandwidth through written policies governing acceptable employee use of company-provided computers and Internet access. Meanwhile, external security risks have been battled with firewalls and antivirus software.

Both of those solutions have flaws.