In case you were in any doubt, browsing the internet for porn will not help your career prospects.
A survey, carried out for the magazine Personnel Today and internet censorware specialists Websense, showed a quarter of UK companies had dismissed employees for internet misconduct, with 69 per cent of the sackings associated with online porn.
The research was conducted among 544 human resources managers from some of the UK's largest corporations and showed 72 per cent of companies have had to deal with internet misuse in the workplace. About 40 per cent of the complaints originated from co-workers unhappy with their colleagues wasting time.
The research found 56 per cent of managers preferred to deal with these complaints by having a "quiet word" with workers, while 29 per cent preferred using verbal warnings. Only 23 per cent had resorted to dismissing the employee.
Another option is more preventative - close the porn sites. This is just what the Italian police have done, closing down five US-based internet sites that had been blaspheming the Roman Catholic faith with a combination of pornographic pictures and offensive statements about the Madonna.
Investigators first learned about the sites, with names that translate into phrases including "pig Madonna" and "blasphemy", in 2000.
The police said: "At these sites, the mention of God and the Madonna, besides being preceded by strongly vulgar language, was tied to explicit images of sex." Blasphemy is illegal in Italy and, although cursing has been decriminalised, publishing or broadcasting sacrilegious material can be prosecuted.
If, in your own time at home, you are searching for an online hit of the weird and wonderful variety, there is always online auctioneer eBay.
My favourite posting in recent weeks has been Item 1748286742 in the Everything Else: Weird Stuff: Slightly Unusual category. It gives bidders the opportunity to name "kerrie99's" child, which is due in September. The description says: "We only ask the name is not offensive in any way. First name can be yours. A copy of the birth certificate will be proof of the name. Email for questions."
Apparently the money will be used for the child's college fund and, as the item is described as "Name our child (collage fund)", this seems appropriate.
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