Notes that until the advent of the Internet, major libraries and text
repositories were considered by all as bastions of information, but th
e Internet has opened up a treasure-trove of information for researche
rs and seekers of knowledge throughout the world. It has become common
practice by researchers of all kinds to turn to the Internet as a con
venient source of information. Asks how effectively does the Internet
really present these researchers with a representative picture of the
state of human knowledge! Identifies the potential misuse of the Inter
net as a source of biased information. Defines biased information as i
nformation not representative of the state of human knowledge. In orde
r to provide a basis for comparison, begins by defining the concept of
a representative subset, which is used as a basis for comparing the n
ature of different information resources. This is followed by a presen
tation of the use of the knowledge-comparison function in evaluating d
ifferent information resources. Then discusses the significance of inf
ormation equivalence in the information age as a basis for setting con
crete goals for Internet research policy. Concludes by presenting a nu
mber of courses of action including a description of X-DEX, an Interne
t indexing standard based on the US Library of Congress cross-referenc
e system.