# Big Brother Is Watching You



## Frank4d (Sep 10, 2006)

My company recently rolled out Office 2007 and Communicator 2007 to all PCs. Pretty cool, except Communicator monitors your computer activity and reports it to everybody on the network. 

I can open Outlook for example and type my boss' name. If the icon next to her name is yellow she hasn't used her computer in at least 15 minutes. Probably away from her office.

Now if I see the icon change from yellow to green that means she just got back to her office and is using the computer. Now is a good time to make a phone call.. no reason why she won't answer (saves leaving voicemail messages that never get returned).

If the icon next to the boss's name changes to beige, now is a good time to ping the boss's computer name. If no ping reply that means she has probably left work for the day and everyone else in the group can leave early too.


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## bp936 (Oct 13, 2003)

????
I'm not sure that's a good idea


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## calvin-c (May 17, 2006)

If your company rolled this out then presumably your boss is aware of both the program & its capabilities, right? So it's not too hard to have the secretary monitor whose computers also 'go beige' shortly after your boss's does. Sounds to me like a good way to make trouble for yourself.

I've seen a few solutions like this proposed where I work. I always say it's better to fire or discipline employees who won't do their job than spend time monitoring them. In your case, propose that your company make a policy that all voice messages will be returned within 24 hours. Then they shouldn't have any need for monitoring.


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## Frank4d (Sep 10, 2006)

I don't think we have a problem at work, I only pointed out a few examples to describe how it works. Most people where I work don't use any of the features that Communicator offers, and most features are not enabled on our network. It's just another background process sucking CPU time on each PC.


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## Courtneyc (Dec 7, 2003)

Actually, right-click on the colored dot. You can change it to whatever you want. Also, it doesn't really use that much CPU time on your PC. Most is on the server and on Exchange.

Courtney


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