Can't say i blame any company for monitoring thier internet traffic. Whether it's simply a matter of non-productive employee time, or all the way to industrial or political espionage (sp?) any company has the right to protect itself from loss from any direction. And, for those companies with defense contracts or such, or classified information on their systems, the lack of monitoring capability could be considered gross negligence in some possible scenarios. But then, i figure paid work time is to be used productively for the person paying me. After all, if i were hiring a carpenter for $60/hr, and he spent his time smokin' 'an jokin', looking for email and chat-rooms on the internet with his portable wireless, i'd probably fire him. So can't see much difference for an employee on the keyboard. But then, maybe i'm just old fashioned.