Can you be fired for Web surfing? | News.blog | CNET News.com

News.com tries to deflate the story about the recent ruling stating that a New York worker could not be fired for surfing the 'Net on company time. However, they completely missed the bigger picture. It's not the fact that the ruling only applies "as long as those activities do not interfere with a worker's overall performance", but the fact that this was a New York CITY employee.

In other words, while I'm not a lawyer, I'm pretty sure this ruling only applies if your employment agreement is not "at-will", as it is in most companies. State employees are not at-will employees, which is why this ruling was needed. So don't go surfing thinking you can't get fired for it, since this case law will most likely not apply to you.