Google working with US states to improve access to government data

Google working with US states to improve access to government data

Search engine giant Google has stated that they are currently working with the governments of Arizona, California, Utah and Virginia to improve access to the public information on their websites to the web users.

The company is already the internet’s most used search engine service. Google said that they have struck deals with the four states on a two-pronged approach as they aim to improve the search on their websites.

Darrell West, a professor of political Science at Brown University spoke on this initiative: “A lot of state agencies view their Web sites as billboards as opposed to dynamic means of two-way communications between governments and their citizens. The problem is that there are some parts of government sites that search engines can’t reach.”

J.L. Needham, Google’s product manager for public sector partnerships added: “The reality is that much information on state Web sites is public, but effectively it’s not, because it’s hard to find.”

It’s unlikely that this deal between the four governments and the private sector company Google has any financial aspect. Google aims to make all the available information on the web accessible to their users and this is just a part of achieving that goal.

Utah and Virginia states are already using the Google’s Custom Search engine service to offer improved searching to the visitors on their official sites. Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt had this to say on their involvement with governments in the US: “These partnerships are among many that Google is pursuing with government agencies to better serve the public.”