The Tax Man Gambles
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees have been spending large portions of time playing instead of working. A Treasury Department review found that IRS staff members have been goofing off online while at work, whiling away half of their online time at sex, gambling and stock-trading sites and other non-work-related activities. According to the department's findings, more than 16,000 IRS staffers
spent 8,250 hours out of 16,275 hours online doing their personal business. During that time, 23 percent of the staffers were visiting chat rooms, 20 percent were handling personal financial matters and 7 percent were shopping online. Other staffers spent time at online gambling and porn sites.
An additional study found that the agency sent out 82,000 e-mails, of which 47 percent pertained to non-work topics. The personal e-mail topics ranged from jokes and high school reunions to the latest news from a popular rock singer's site. After uncovering so many Internet abuses among IRS employees, higher ups at the agency responded by clamping down with new, stiffer rules for Internet usages as well as installing screening software on agency computers to prevent access to porn sites.
Microsoft, AOL Duke It Out
Analysts at Gartner Research foresee instant messaging service providers Microsoft and America Online duking it out over which service will dominate among online chatters. Currently 36 percent of consumers and 40 percent of business customers use the Microsoft chat service, while 52 percent of consumers and 51 percent of business customers chat through AOL's instant message service.
What concerns Gartner researchers most, however, is that instant message users will soon be pledging their future online personas and personal data when selecting a particular IM brand. This will give a long-term market advantage to the company possessing such information that will be far more beneficial than owning an e-mail address or domain. Instant messaging will be the core of wireless e-commerce, live collaboration, virtual gaming and a host of other Internet applications, Gartner says.
"As you select your instant messaging preference, think about who will safeguard your banking data, social security number and a host of other private transactions," warned Gartner analyst Neil MacDonald. "Clearly, Microsoft has the technology lead, but AOL has the consumer confidence on privacy and security matters. The last place you want to have an identity crisis is online."
Study Highlights Focuses on Women with Gambling Problems
Researchers recently compared 48 women and 53 men entering problem gambling treatment programs and found striking differences between the two sexes. It seems that women tend to get involved with gambler later in life than men, yet make up for it by being more swiftly overcome by gambling problems. "What we found is that women tend to progress two to four times faster than men between the onset of gambling regularly the point at which they sought their first gambling-specific treatment," researcher Hermano Tavares, MD, PhD told WebMD.
"Many of these women are not the regular image of a gambler," he added. "They are mostly recent gamblers, often retired mothers that went to gamble a little, got distracted, and came out with a huge headache. They are bewildered and can't believe what has happened to their lives." Tavares cannot determine, however, whether his findings are a result of women being more susceptible to gambling problems or their just being more likely to seek help more quickly. In addition, his research shows that women usually have less access to gambling outlets, but the games they play tend to be the most addictive - bingo and video lottery terminals.
Online Security, Identity Protection Top Consumers Preferences
Attendees participating in a survey conducted by Safewww at the NACHA Payments 2001 conference expressed their concerns about online security and identity protection during e-commerce transactions. The results showed:
- 98 percent of respondents believe that online security provides a competitive advantage for their customers;
- 43 percent feel that their customers are only somewhat confident that their identities are protected online;
- 32 percent believe that customers aren't confident; and
- 25 percent feel that their customers are confident that their identities are protected online.