Corporate IT Filtering -- Going Overboard

I was visiting a client a few weeks back who has decided to block social networking sites -- and even those with loose ties to Web 2.0 -- from their firewall. Now, this is not some big corporate organization, but a rather nimble start-up that is trying to teach its customers to be innovative. Good luck, given that they're blocking access to sites that their employees should understand and use -- if they so choose -- such as Technorati and Twitter. To wit, when I went to both sites, their IT program gave me the following webpage: "GFI WebMonitor 4Access for 10.10.2.50 was denied by GFI WebMonitor for ISA Server.Details: Default Web Filtering Policy Blocked site category:Web Log, Social Networking / Dating". Now, I'll be the first to admit that I'm still grappling with the value proposition of Twitter in its current form from a business standpoint, but I have no doubt that any software company preaching innovation to its customers should at least allow its own employees to see how these technologies can work to make more informed decisions about how to build future solutions to meet their customer's emerging needs.

- Jason Busch