IP: Oops! Gov't search engine on hold

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 18:27:05 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Chris Metcalfe <chris () media mit edu>
> To: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
> Subject: for IP: Oops! Gov't search engine on hold 
>
> Oops! Gov't search engine on hold
>
> By Maria Seminerio, ZDNet
>
> Plans for a fee-based search engine for government Web sites have been 
> put on hold after Commerce Department officials on Tuesday
> questioned whether the charges would conflict with the Clinton 
> administration's commitment to "unrestricted access" to government data.
>
> Later Tuesday, the Commerce Department announced the site would be free 
> to users until June 1 while government officials debated which, if
> any, materials accessible on the site could come at a fee.
>
> The search service, a joint venture between the Commerce Department's 
> National Technical Information Services unit and software maker Northern 
> Light
> Technology Inc., was to help users locate specific documents within the 
> government's 20,000 Web sites. It was launched Monday.
>
> The cost was to be $30 for a monthly subscription, or $15 for a single 
> day's use. The for-profit NTIS pays for some of its other services 
> through user fees, officials said.
>
> To some observers, this would fly in the face of the administration's 
> open-access policy.
>
> "Most Americans feel they should have the ability to see what the 
> government is up to," said Ari Schwartz, a policy analyst at the Center 
> for Democracy and Technology. "Charging for access inevitably limits the 
> number of people who can."
>
> Revenues from the service were to be split between the NTIS and Northern 
> Light. The site was also to catalog some 5,400 magazines indexed by Northern
> Light's own search engine.
>
> Policy review needed
> Commerce Department officials said Tuesday they needed to ensure that 
> such a service, even one partly run by a for-profit government agency, 
> would not conflict with the administration's open-access goals.
>
> "In announcing the product and joint venture with Northern Light, we did 
> not anticipate any conflict with government information policies," said 
> Gary Bachula, the acting undersecretary for technology administration at 
> the NTIS. "But questions that have arisen point up the need for a review 
> of this service from a policy perspective."
>
> The Clinton administration's policy calls for government-related data to 
> be made available to the public for free except for certain fees related 
> to disseminating the data. The NTIS, by law, is allowed to charge fees 
> for its services.
>
> Reuters contributed to this story.
>
>
> -- Chris