The Commerce Department has decided to pull out of a joint venture with a private firm on a Web search engine giving public access to government databases.
The partnership was controversial because plans to charge for the service appeared to contradict Clinton administration policy on making "the Internet and government information more accessible to everyone," wrote Jeri Clausing in today's New York Times.
The search engine, written by Northern Light, a Cambridge, Mass.-based firm, went online Monday anyway, but as a private venture for paying customers, with a provision for free school and library access.
Northern Light established the search engine last month in partnership with the Commerce Department's National Technical Information Service (NTIS) to provide users with easier access to documents on more than 20,000 government agency and military Web sites.
The Web site, however, came under fire for charging a subscription fee for the service. As a result, the Commerce Department announced shortly after the debut of the Web site, known as "usgovsearch", that the service would be free while officials reviewed whether charging for it would violate government information dissemination practices.
On Monday, Commerce officials announced that NTIS would pull out of the venture. The agency was slated to receive half of the fees paid by users of the site.
Northern Light CEO David Seuss said in a statement that the company would provide the service for free to public libraries and public elementary, middle and high schools in an effort "to make usgovsearch freely accessible to the American people."
The company, however, will charge others $5 for a day pass and $30 a month, or $250 a year, for a subscription to the service.
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