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