[8288] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: EDGAR and A-130
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Miles R Fidelman)
Fri Nov 12 20:33:16 1993
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1993 20:27:24 -0500 (EST)
From: Miles R Fidelman <fidelman@civicnet.org>
To: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <9311122233.AA23012@aland.bbn.com>
On Fri, 12 Nov 1993, Craig Partridge wrote:
>
> There's a third type of culture that's evolving -- folks who make money
> by pointing you to the information you want (or getting it for you).
>
>
> I suspect we're headed for a similar situation on the Internet. It is
> extraordinarily cheap to make large amounts of data available on-line.
> And I expect within a decade or so, we'll be able to *require* the Govt
> make documents available electronically under the FOIA, at which point
> anyone can get Govt documents (including court cases) and setup an FTP
> site. But the problem will be how to find the right FTP site among
> thousands. And I see nothing wrong with people spending money to someone
> to help find the FTP site they want.
>
Going beyond that -- I expect that the Govt will put documents online in
their course of doing normal internal business, and then making those
documents available via the net.
The other role for 3rd parties is operating mirror sites -- for example,
I would pay a modest sum simply to avoid the congestion at popular
sites. A question that arises here, is whether there is an equitable way
to give mirror sites (fee-paid or otherwise) higher priority access to
the core information sources, so that they can keep themselves up to date?
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