Salesforce Uses Chatter To Monitor Employees 82
storagedude writes "At the launch of Chatter Mobile this week, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff said he has been using the Facebook-like business service to monitor employee communications and identify a 'secret network' of employees who are influential in driving the business. Asked if employees felt like they were being spied on by Big Brother, Benioff replied, 'There are certain things appropriate in a business environment. We're not talking about a tea party, we're talking about how to get things fixed.' With 20,000 companies already using the three-month-old service, it is no doubt being put to similar use elsewhere. While Salesforce's use of Chatter to monitor employees appears to be legal, the issue underscores just how much social networks can be mined for information — even for things they weren't intended for."
Somebody finaly read last weeks The Economist (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.economist.com/node/16910031?story_id=16910031 [economist.com]
Mining social networks
Untangling the social web
Software: From retailing to counterterrorism, the ability to analyse social connections is proving increasingly useful
It's still and interesting article.
Re:I think its BS... (Score:3, Informative)
Privacy: You've got a smartphone. I've got a smartphone. Everybody's got a smartphone. Seriously, if your employer feels at all hostile or big brother, can't you do you personal email, FB, Twitter, etc. on your phone?
This. Just this.
Re:I think its BS... (Score:4, Informative)
Has anyone actually looked at the product in question?
Salesforce Chatter is like an internal Facebook. Everything is presumed to be "public" (internally public, that is). Unlike email in a company, there is no presumption of privacy here. No spying or anything.
Of course your being monitored (Score:4, Informative)
It's pretty simple.
Consider everything that your company has you use, to be monitored.
Your computer, your phone, your cubicle/office.
Software they say you have to use.
Sure, that's maybe a bit paranoid, but if you assume it, your less likely to do stupid crap on their equipment that can be trouble for you later.
Re:Chatter is a Salesforce product...shrug (Score:4, Informative)
We use salesforce all day long and yet none of us at work use "chatter". It's almost as if it's a clunky, superfluous facebook-alike shoehorned into what's otherwise a good CRM system.
Does anyone here on /. actually use chatter?