Isn't it all about the culture of the company, really? Hardly any of our clients block anything off the net. The higher and more prestigious the firm, the more likely they are to simply trust their staff. If you're paying some accounting consultant $350,000 a year to start, chances are pretty good you aren't going to be too hot and bothered if they are streaming Pandora or not.... Seriously.
It's those clients I've had that are the 2nd and 3rd tier kinda firms - your run of the mill insurance companies and whatnot - where management gets their panties all in a bunch. The average worker is getting paid $50,000 a year to work, goddamnit, not fart around on the interwebs.
At the end of the day, this is really little more than Class Warfare. I see little in the workforce to prove otherwise. The lower down you are, the more you're watched over and restricted. The more fucking money you make and the better the company, the more likely they are to trust the employees.
Nothing is blocked with the company I work for, and I've never heard of any sort of abuse or disciplinary action. Flash builds and Java versions and whatnot are never really an issue. To H2's point, what our IT group does do is hold on to a stable version of ANYTHING until it's practially worthless. That's a smart move, and pretty common throughout the US workforce.
