Goldbricking (also called cyberloafing or cyberslacking) is the practice of doing less work than one is able to, while maintaining the appearance of working. The term originates from the confidence trick of applying a gold coating to a brick of worthless metal—while workers may appear industrious or productive on the surface, in reality they are less valuable.
A 1999 report estimated that in the United States, because human employees sometimes use internet access at work for non-work related activities, $1 billion a year of employers' computer-resource costs did not yield their desired profitability.[1] Additionally, instances of goldbricking increased markedly when broadband Internet connections became commonplace in workplaces. Before that, the slow speed of dial-up connections meant that spending work-time browsing on the Internet was rarely worthwhile.
Many firms deploy surveillance software to track employees' Internet activity in an effort to limit liability and to improve productivity.[2]
Goldbricking became a mainstream topic when Yahoo! announced in late February 2013 the banning of remote work: it had discovered that its remote workers were not logging into the corporate VPN often enough.[3]
The work-from-home debate has certainly exploded across the landscape this week, after an edict to eliminate the long-time employee policy at Yahoo, especially since most other Internet companies tout flexible work arrangements. [...] But, apparently, Mayer thinks Yahoos have abused the privilege — she noted at an employee meeting last week that VPN logs showed work-at-home staff did not sign on enough [...].