[9205] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
New Databases Available in 1994
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Carl Malamud)
Tue Dec 21 14:06:21 1993
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 93 13:37:33 -0500
To: "Internet Multicasting Service Announcements" <announce@radio.com>
Cc: "Commercials on the Internet" <com-priv@psi.com>,
From: "Carl Malamud" <carl@radio.com>
For Immediate Release For More Information:
December 21, 1993 questions@radio.com
Key Speech by Vice President Gore
Multicast on Global Internet Network
Three New Government Databases Put on Internet
by Internet Multicasting Service in Response to Gore Speech
Washington, D.C. - Vice President Gore spoke today at the
National Press Club, presenting the Clinton/Gore administration's
first major address on our Information Superhighway. The
Internet Multicasting Service multicast this speech live over the
global Internet computer network. Over 200 comments and
questions from the general public were received before and during
the speech by electronic mail. Mr. Gore was asked some of the
questions and at the conclusion National Press Club President
Clayton Boyce presented the Vice President with a floppy disk
containing all the electronic mail received before 12:50 EST.
This kind of instant feedback from the public to policy makers is
a concrete example of the vision spelled out by Mr. Gore. Recent
statements by the Vice President and by Congressional leaders
outline a key principle: access to advanced information services
must be available in our inner cities, our schools, our
libraries, our homes, and throughout our society.
In response to the call by Vice President Gore and Congressional
leaders for wider accessibility by the public to government
information, the Internet Multicasting Service, a non-profit
corporation, today announced that it will be making available on
the Internet a series of databases including:
Federal Election Commission 1992 and 1994 Election Cycles
Federal Reserve Board Releases for 1993 and 1994
U.S. Patent Office Full Text/APS Format for 1994
Purchase of these databases is funded through donations from
private industry and complement our NSF-funded research project
to investigate Internet-based dissemination of the Securities and
Exchange Commission EDGAR Database for 1994.
In the case of the Patent database, we will work with Gregory
Aharonian of the Internet Patent Service in Cambridge,
Massachusetts who will provide additional processing on the
database, a role similar to that provided by New York University
for the EDGAR database. The database has approximately 50
Gigabytes per year.
When Congressman Edward Markey calls for "two wires into the
home" and Vice President Gore calls for access to all Americans
to our information superhighway, they spell out fundamental
principles for the information age. Equal access and multiple
service providers should extend beyond fiber optic cables all the
way up to the information that moves over the wires. The two
wire principle should be extended to the two byte principle:
Data paid for by the American taxpayers must be broadly available
to the American public and not sold off to the highest bidder.
For each of the three databases announced today, the government
agencies were extremely cooperative and supportive of our
efforts. All of government can learn by the examples set by the
Patent Office, the Federal Reserve Board, and the Federal
Election Commission.
Industry and government can both learn from our demonstration
projects and from our research. Can we ignore the possibility
that there are ways to reduce federal expenditures for
information dissemination by a factor of 100 and broaden public
access to public information? How can a few hundred thousand
dollars in research grants and donations by corporations possibly
endanger a thriving billion dollar per year retail information
industry? As Vice President Gore said today, "we are committed
to preserving the affordability, diversity, and availability of
information."
The Internet Multicasting Service is a non-profit corporation
chartered in Delaware which operates the world's first
"cyberstation." From our studios in the National Press Building
in Washington, D.C., we send out multimedia data that includes
government databases, National Press Club luncheons, messages
from Santa Claus, radio and TV programs from public broadcasting,
readings by famous poets provided by Harper Collins, and the
"Geek of the Week" interviews. Send mail to info@radio.com for
more information.
Funding for on-line access to information is provided by our
sponsors, including Sun Microsystems, O'Reilly & Associates,
UUNET Technologies, MFS Datanet, Persoft, and by a grant from the
National Science Foundation.
