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Sayonara, Social Sentry: Bosses Can Spy for Free With Web Tools

by Amar Toor on March 31, 2010 at 02:46 PM

As we've informed you, the new monitoring service Social Sentry allows nosy vigilant bosses to read exactly what their employees are saying and talking about on Facebook, all in the name of "corporate protection." Created by Teneros, Social Sentry allows bosses to set up alerts and real-time notifications about their employees' Twitter or Facebook activity, and can even monitor workers who social network under a different alias.

There's no official price listed for Social Sentry's services, although AllFacebook speculates that Teneros probably charges some sort of monthly fee. If you're a boss on a shoestring budget, though, there are easier, more cost-effective ways to keep tabs on your underlings, and they're probably just as effective as Social Sentry. By creating Google Alerts for your employees' names, by developing a personalized app to scan Facebook and Twitter, or by using Yahoo! Pipes to refine your witch hunt parameters, you can still probably keep a pretty close watch on your minions -- without having to dole out any cash.

The vast majority of us, however, are not bosses, and, at some point or another, we'll likely find ourselves on the other side of the microscope. What do you do if you're worried about Boss Man sniffing around your digital trail? Well, the easy solution would be to tighten up ship. Check and double-check your privacy settings, and then triple-check them by conducting a dry run search of yourself, or by setting up your own Google Alert. It might seem extreme (or ostensibly narcissistic), but you can never be too sure about what might get out there with your name on it.

As much as we all love to moan about bosses snooping around our private lives, they actually have pretty legit grounds to do so whenever they're worried about employees leaking proprietary information online. Whether or not they actually use these search capabilities for their intended purpose, though, is another question--and, in this case pretty irrelevant. Fact of the matter is, it's now easier than ever for superiors to keep a constant surveillance over your online behavior, if they want to. It's probably best, then, to not run the risk, do a thorough check of your public information and beat your boss to the punch. [From: AllFacebook]

Tags: bosses, employees, employment, facebook, monitoring, privacy, security, socialsentry, spying, teneros, top, twitter

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