CHH puts ban on staff TradeMe use

One of New Zealand's largest employers has banned its 6000 staff from using auction website TradeMe.

Carter Holt Harvey chief information officer Pat O'Connell said the company had blocked access to TradeMe for its staff, 2500 of whom had direct internet access.

"We keep an eye on the sites that are heavily used and anything that's not work-related and is getting up there, we ban," he said.

TradeMe use was costing the company heavily because of Carter Holt Harvey's size.

"I'm sure it's addictive and that's why it's becoming the most popular site here by far."

Staff accessing sports results sites on a one-off basis did not pose the same problem, he said.

Carter Holt Harvey is looking at banning other trading sites, including meet-and-greet sites such as Old Friends, an offshoot of TradeMe.

"We don't go banning everything. Those doing a bit of home banking or looking up where they want to go on holiday or finding a flat to rent [is okay] ... but it's when it starts taking significant time out of people's days and starts costing us real money," said O'Connell.

"TradeMe is by far the biggest site that's being accessed at the moment."

He said there would be a cost involved in allowing staff to access the site during lunch breaks, since people took them at different times, therefore that option was not considered.

TradeMe business manager Mike O'Donnell said some companies treated their staff as responsible adults and others did not.

People did not respond well to being told what they could and could not do, and it was inevitable that some would end up spending more time trying to figure a way round such a ban.

O'Donnell said Carter Holt Harvey's decision to ban 2500 PC users during daylight hours would not make a dent in business at TradeMe, which had 1.1 million New Zealand members.

"But I'd guess you might see sudoku and solitaire rates increase at Carter Holt Harvey."

Many companies restrict internet usage, but O'Donnell did not know of anyone else who had singled out TradeMe.

"We had an amusing incident last year when a company's head of IT added us to the restricted list, only to have the managing director reverse the decision because he was using TradeMe to buy classic cars."

Employers and Manufacturers Association spokesman Gilbert Peterson said companies were entitled to ban staff from using the internet at work for personal reasons, even in their own time.

"Imagine if you have a staff of 300 and half of them decided to go on TradeMe in one lunch-hour. Think of how much bandwidth you'd use and how much that might clog your system and affect important, business-related work."

The Fire Service has also banned TradeMe. Fonterra's internet restriction is based round genres, which include all auction sites.

Telecom has no ban on TradeMe and Air New Zealand sanctions visits to the site, which it has started using to market package holidays.