Despite Huge Investment, Goldman Blocks Employees From Facebook

According to the New York Times, Goldman Sachs and Russian investor Digital Sky Technologies are investing $500 million in Facebook. But Goldman employees could be blocked from viewing the fruits of their labor during office hours.

"Even as Goldman takes a stake in Facebook," writes the Times, "its employees may struggle to view what they invested in. Like those at most major Wall Street firms, Goldman's computers automatically block access to social networking sites, including Facebook."

Indeed, the majority of U.S. companies block, limit or discourage employees from accessing social media networks at work, according to a survey conducted in 2009 by consulting firm Robert Half Technology.

But Facebook use has been banned at Goldman Sachs since before blocked access became the norm for businesses. In 2007, TechCrunch reported that a Goldman trader in the UK was admonished for allegedly spending spending several hours a day on Facebook.

Some may debate the benefits of blocking sites like Facebook and Twitter at the office, but it's unlikely that Goldman will relax its policy, given the security risks associated with social networks. Recently, researchers with computer security software and services leader McAfee, Inc. predicted that social networks will be some of the biggest targets for cybercriminals in 2011. In the company's 2011 Threat Predictions report, McAfee Labs senior VP Vincent Weafer issued the following warning:

We've seen significant advancements in device and social network adoption, placing a bulls-eye on the platforms and services users are embracing the most [...] These platforms and services have become very popular in a short amount of time, and we're already seeing a significant increase in vulnerabilities, attacks and data loss.

Facebook, one of the world's top social platforms, is also one of the most vulnerable, according to the McAfee report.

Comments

[kerriberri]

08:28 AM on 01/04/2011

Guess I was wrong; I always thought the Chinese would be the first to buy into Facebook. But it's the Russians. Go figure.

[georgecarlin1776]

03:54 AM on 01/04/2011

Goldman will ruin Facebook and it will end up like myspace.

[fruity]

12:31 AM on 01/04/2011

That's because they're concerned about the military data mining. Go ask Peter bout that juicy bit

[MikeyJaii]

11:14 PM on 01/03/2011

As of now they say the net worth of Facebook is 50 billion, insane much? One day it's 50 billion, and then when users decide to leave it'll worth less than a penny.

[Luke Thompson]

09:43 PM on 01/03/2011

Can't let the monkeys have any fun.

[Charles Holden]

09:42 PM on 01/03/2011

That is one dumb headline

[rmaenza]

08:14 PM on 01/03/2011

Nothing wrong with blocking it, most companies are doing that now because of all the distractions it causes at the workplace. mainstreethost

[Hardyman1966]

06:33 PM on 01/03/2011

Are you really missing that much during work hours from a free site that's supposedly worth $50,000,000,000?

[Prefect]

06:31 PM on 01/03/2011

This article inevitably mentions the productivity angle, which plays a role with blocking social media, but for financial firms like Goldman the reasoning is much simpler. NASD 3010 AND 3110 require supervisory controls around correspondence between broker-dealers/registered reps and the public, including retention for a period of e-mails, instant messages, and so forth. Since you can't easily archive messages on Facebook in a corporate system or justify the expense of doing so since Facebook is not a business tool, you must block access to it from the office.

[democles]

05:57 PM on 01/03/2011

AOL = Facebook. All hype.

[EricBishop]

08:42 PM on 01/03/2011

AOL ever had hype? Was I not born yet?

[Valerio della Porta]

09:51 PM on 01/03/2011

Yes it did when it merged with Time Warner on January 10 2000. At $350 B is still the largest merger and widely taught in Business Schools as the worst decision ever made.in American business history.

[lonbwoy]

10:16 PM on 01/03/2011

More like Facebook= A clean Myspace and hyped up to $50 Billion.

[Brandon1990]

05:44 PM on 01/03/2011

The Same company that was to big to fail? I really think Facebook is overrated and is not worth 50B it's all hype.

[EricBishop]

08:43 PM on 01/03/2011

The marketing inferences that could be had from anonymized user data alone could justify a multi-billion dollar valuation.

[Stefan Dembowski]

04:36 PM on 01/03/2011

Not a surprise at all: Financial Firms need to monitor the communications of Registered Reps and other staff.

Anything that can be used as a message board needs to be blocked.

[Angelus2007]

04:28 PM on 01/03/2011

I don't know any company (other than facebook) that lets you view facebook on work time. This is non-news

[Crash Barbosa]

04:21 PM on 01/03/2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i-jJXpn3zk

[J0E1]

04:14 PM on 01/03/2011

Thanks to id10ts that have no common sense when it comes to cyber security, I can't even access my personal email from work.  Thankfully smart phones solve that problem.

[PenguinLinux]

10:48 AM on 01/04/2011

When you speak of security, are you per chance using Windows or Mac OS X?