COMMERCIALIZING PUBLIC INFORMATION - A CRITICAL ISSUE FOR GOVERNMENTAL IS PROFESSIONALS

Public data is viewed as an increasingly valuable commodity by busines s. Access to this data is affected by many federal and state legislati ve acts, most notably the Freedom of Information, Privacy Act, and Ope n Access laws. Some governmental agencies recognize that their data is a saleable commodity and are seeking to charge access fees that excee d actual copying costs. It is important for public information systems managers to recognize their role in dealing with the most salient iss ues arising from the commercialization of public data, including their ability to charge fees for their data that are in excess of copying c osts to recover reasonable costs related to obtaining and formatting t he information and the degree to which they must respond to specialize d formatting and access requests.