The advent of Web 2.0 sites has dramatically changed the nature of the internet, historically only webmasters had the ability to design and upload information; however now any user can easily add a profile to a social-networking site and upload content or post information to a blog, wiki or forum.
This information is then often reviewed by search engines, indexed and accessible throughout the World Wide Web.
Issues arising from Web 2.0 can be addressed by blocking the site; however there is a trade-off between security and productivity, for example an error has occurred on a workstation and a system administrator wishes to look for other instances of this on a Forum site.
Blocking this would hinder the users productivity whilst allowing it may enable the user to resolve this issue but while accessing the site the administrator posts the topic “Assistance needed to patch a Vulnerability on our Web Server” this could be picked up on by a hacker and exploited to serve information to other web users from a legitimate site (see secure web gateway for more info).
A good Web 2.0 policy should find the right balance between security and productivity for your organisation and be backed up by a Web 2.0 Filtering solution to enforce Web 2.0 policy and alert where users are restricted by this web filtering policy.