Skyhigh Networks, whose mission is to help organizations discover what cloud services their employees are using, has released news that might unnerve many records and information managers and IT executives – or, more likely, affirm what they already suspect: employees are using “tons of different services to store and share files online.”

A March 5 article on citeworld.com contains Skyhigh’s list of the top 50 cloud services that 500,000 end users – employees of clients like GE and Cisco – are using. Note that three of the following top-10 services enable online storage and file sharing:

• Facebook (social network)
• Dropbox (file sharing)
• Google mail (e-mail)
• Apple iCloud (file sharing)
• LinkedIn (social network, recruiting)
• Disqus (comments)
• Salesforce (CRM)
• Amazon Web Services (hosted computing platform for web apps)
• Hotmail (e-mail)
• Box.net (file sharing)

According to the article, Skyhigh’s goal isn’t to limit the use of online services but instead to give employees information to help them avoid high-risk services.

ARMA International points out that those using these services may also be storing their organizations’ records and information with them. For that reason, organizations’ policies should indicate whether using these services for business is acceptable and, if so, what the employee’s responsibility is to ensure the organization’s information is brought under corporate oversight in some manner.

Many times, employees’ use of such services indicates there is some business need that is not being addressed through the organization’s own infrastructure. These issues should be explored and appropriate guidance provided to employees. The ARMA International technical report Using Social Media in Organizations (ARMA TR 21-2012) provides guidance for developing and implementing policy, controls, and training to ensure that that information governance implications of using these technologies are addressed.