This CareerJournal article from the Wall Street Journal indicates that more employers are starting to place restrictions on employee web use.  Some are using filtering tools to shut down use of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

This isn’t groundbreaking news as we have seen limits placed on web usage from the beginning of it’s inception.  However, in a workplace that values the use of learning through web tools and increased productivity through instant messaging services etc, this can become problematic.  The article points to one example of an employee who watches videos to learn more about how to do certain things in his job.  Seems a little ridiculous that the company would restrict access to these sites ad hoc.

Companies are walking a fine line between policing their employees and making sure that their corporate IT resources are working at optimal levels.  With a continued blending of personal and work time with ubiquitous computing and the added advantages in productivity, I think that they can strike a balance between such restrictive access and an internet free-for-all.