Companies are cracking down on employees’ use of social networks and increasingly are tracking their e-mails in an attempt to stop secrets leaking out. The recession and resulting layoffs have increased the risk of disgruntled or departing employees leaking information in revenge or for monetary gain. A survey in the United States showed that almost a third of companies had dismissed workers for violating e-mail policies. American companies are also increasingly concerned about a growing number of data leaks caused by employee misuse of blogs, social networks and even Twitter.
The Times