What fresh hell is this?

A news release hit the wires today from Dublin-based Research and Markets . Here’s a tiny sample:

"Companies Need to Raise Employee Awareness Regarding Blogging and Associated Threats … Blogging is rapidly emerging as a threat to Internet users."

I’ve been shaking my head ever since I read this ham-fisted, inflammatory piece of fear-mongering, but I still can’t quell the shrill noise in my ears. It’s the chilling bleat of innocent young clues being slaughtered in a mahogany-panelled boardroom somewhere to the south...

Research and Markets is kind of a wholesaler or clearing house for 3rd-party research. Styling themselves the "World’s largest Market Research resource", their business model appears to involve sourcing reports from a variety of analysts and publishers, slapping a healthy markup on them, and brokering the same gently-used materials to their unquestioning clients.

A randomly-selected Datamonitor report on the R&M website, for example, costs $1,436 more than if you were to purchase the exact same report from the original source. Not sure where the value add is there, chaps.

I don’t mean to shoot the messenger, however. The plaintive shrieking I can hear actually emanates from a different source.

The research flagged in R&M’s news release is from a group called Janus Risk Management in Massachusetts. These guys are the real clue butchers.

I’m hoping to get a copy of the entire report so that I can respond in full, but even the précis offered on the R&M site is irresistibly fiskworthy, starting with that first line:

"Blogging is rapidly emerging as a threat to Internet users."

What?

Coming from a company that specializes in areas such as regulatory compliance, Sarbanes-Oxley, and GLBA, one could understand if they’d said "a threat to corporations." It would still be clumsy and wrong-headed, but it would at least make some kind of sense. But a threat to Internet users?!

Another extract of the same report, available at a different research clearing house (where did all these buggers come from all of a sudden?), provides further enlightenment as to the nature of this "threat":

"Viruses, worms, Trojan horses, Remote Access Trojans, hackers, organized crime, terrorists, and others continue to make the Internet a dangerous place due to fraud, extortion, denials of service, identity theft, espionage, and other crimes. Now, blogging is emerging as a threat to the Internet user community."

Blogs are like terrorists? Like viruses? Sorry. My flabber is too gasted to permit any kind of rational response here.

It goes on:

"While blogs have a legitimate use, online journals pose serious threats to enterprise confidentiality, integrity, and availability."

I’m trying to project myself into the mind of one of these risk assessment gurus – to survey the unwashed, pajama-clad hordes of the blogosphere through their squinty eyes for a second. Viewed from this perspective, I can almost grok some of the concerns. The three levels of threat cover:

Enterprise confidentiality – check. Bloggers might tell the truth about stuff you’d rather keep secret. Be afraid.

Integrity – um, check. I guess. If it’s the integrity of your carefully-polished message you’re worried about. Be very afraid.

Availability – pardon?

Availability – ah. That’s what I thought you said. Er... WTF?

In what possible way could blogs ever be considered a threat to the "availability" of your company? What the hell do you mean by "availability" anyway? If we’re talking network availability here, then still what the flaming hell do you mean? You think blogs are going to bring down your network – choke the pipes with traffic in some kind of repeat of your Pointcast nightmares?

Or is there perhaps some other meaning of "availability" intended. "Sorry, Mr. Johnson can’t take your call right now, he’s reading blogs."

It doesn’t get any better, I’m afraid. Gnaw on this gristly little morsel, for example:

"This presentation is designed for distribution to employees to raise their awareness of the importance of using extreme caution if and when it becomes necessary to visit blogs as part of the employee’s job performance."

(My emphasis)

So, apparently it’s not even the impure and dangerous act of writing blogs that is the main concern here. If their focus was on employees blogging on the man’s dime, when they’re supposed to be filling out their TPS reports, again – I could almost understand the concern.

But no – the fear seems to be driven by the thought that cube slaves might (the horror!) find it necessary to visit blogs during office hours.

Sheesh. Well why didn’t they just say so in the first place?

If that’s the only thing we’re supposed to worry about with blogs, there’s already a well-tested cure available in the form of the Web Fire Escape, courtesy of PorridgeBoy Global Enterprises plc.

[updated 15.11.04 - fixed the b0rked links]