Questions of legality will definitely need a country tag, as that is going to vary. But even if technically not illegal, disabling software your company installed on a computer they own is probably against company policy and could have professional repercussions.

Again, where are you located? What country/state? Any answer you receive will depend entirely on the jurisdiction.

I'm located in Eastern Europe. If possible please include known cases for other countries.

Not every company. We employ adults and trust them to get on with their jobs without feeling the need to monitor everything they do.

Do you really want us to do legal research for you in every single country in Eastern Europe? That's going to take forever! Not to mention, each one of those countries has their own native language. Is this an actual problem you're having? It really doesn't sound like it is. Here on StackOverflow, we only deal with actual problems people are having, and hypothetical problems people are having because they've read an article on the internet that made them mad, is not specific or concrete enough for us to resolve it for them.

"Nowadays in every company there is employee monitoring software installed on company laptops/computers" - no, not every company is run by shameful people or in a field where employees are shameful

Another problem is that it's AFAIK impossible to detect corporate spyware. As long as the IT department has full control of the hardware, they can install services that you can't even detect/inspect. IT folks seem to be universally reluctant to discuss exactly what they use and under what circumstances they use it (regarding spyware).

Can you use network tools to block that particular connection?

@teego1967 perhaps they don't want to discuss it because it's in a murky grey area, if not outright illegal ;)

There are also plenty of places where your employer is required to inform you of this kind of monitoring.

More importantly, the real answer is: get your own laptop to do stuff you don't want them to know about.

@Kilisi, I suppose that's true, but even when anonymous, there's little disclosure about what actually happens in real life as the norm.

@teego1967 the norm would vary between companies and locales. But there is no limit to what has been done I would think.

Can I legally ask my employer to stop monitoring my laptop? Please clarify who owns the laptop. Is it your laptop? Or it is the company's laptop? If it's the company's, of course they have the right to install anything. If it is your laptop, of course, they do not have the right to install anything. Simple and clear.

@Kilisi, yes. It's plausible, for example, that the IT department in an office in Singapore would be more invasive than one in California. It's also possible that some organizations would be excessively draconian regardless of locale. What I am trying to do is get some idea of what's "normal" for mainstream US offices. That's really hard to find out, I think.

@scaaahu, they might be able to "install anything" but there's a very large unknown grey area of what is reasonable as far as actions. The IT department could trivially block access to gmail, for instance. But if they don't block access to gmail, then is it OK for staff in the IT department to surf through plaintext of employee private gmail content? They could if they have the right tools. Most corps control root certs and it's at lesat possible to decrypt TLS traffic at line rate and store many terabytes. Do they do that? I don't know but I doubt it.

@teego1967 Your point is whether they are able to. Yes, I agree that they are able to. My point is whether they have the right to do so depending on who owns the laptop..

@scaaahu, by that line of thought, you appear to suggest that they also "own" an employee's personal gmail content if it happens to be read on a laptop owned by the company? I am saying that's a large ethical grey area and it deserves some careful consideration. (But yes I agree it's safest to separate personal and work devices if there's a concern about corporate spyware and irresponsibility in the IT department).