Thanks to the Internet, pornography in the office has become almost as commonplace as coffee, according to a survey released Monday.

Research from Ottawa software company Bajai Inc. and the CATAAlliance <http://www.cata.ca> reveals more than half of respondents say they've seen someone reprimanded or dismissed for inappropriate use of the Internet in the office.

It could be a smutty e-mail joke or a piece of racist humor, but the biggest offender by far is pornography, says Bajai president and CEO Anthony Whitehead. Bajai develops and markets software to filter out pornographic images and text for enterprise-size companies. But that isn't the market the company first considered. The original market was parents shielding their children from online pornographic material in the home.

"It turns out, after we did our market research, this is a huge issue at work as well," says Whitehead. "When we've done analysis of logs, employers are shocked to find that upwards of 10 per cent of their accesses are going to pornographic Web sites."

Even more shocking is that half of the 52 CATA members surveyed don't have any Internet policy for the workplace. Companies without such policies may only have themselves to blame for Internet abuse, says Whitehead. "Having a policy is actually the first step in actually explaining to your employees what the Internet resources are intended to be used for."