Policies Governing Organisations' Use of Web Content
Jinfo Blog

By Robin Neidorf

Abstract

FreePint's director of research, Robin Neidorf, outlines why our recent survey into policies around the use of web content by organisations is essential reading.

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As part of the FreePint Topic Series "News, and Other Commodities", we ran a survey into policies around the use of web content (subscriber content). We invited Lynn Strand to work with FreePint Research on the project, as she has considerable experience in in-depth research as well as analysis.

There's not a department in a business which doesn't use information from the web now - from business development to sales and R&D. But how many companies have a policy in place to govern their use of web content for business purposes? And how well are they enforced?

We also wanted to explore what the policies covered and how information professionals were involved in managing or influencing those policies.

Respondents from a wide range of industry sectors shared their views with us, including analysts, information managers and directors working in the biotech field, finance, government and legal. 

How Many Have a Policy? 

So how many of our 110 respondents have a policy in place? Just half of those surveyed have a policy governing their use of web content, with 28% not being sure whether they have a company policy and a further 22% not aware of such a policy.  

The reasons given for absence of policy is lack of understanding by leadership, followed by the perception that associated risk is too low to warrant dedicating resources ƒ

Find Out More

FreePint Subscribers can log in now to read the full findings in "FreePint Survey into Web Usage Policies", including the risks associated with not having a policy, and the impact policies can have on research if sites such as social media platforms are blocked.

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