New NOAA information policy stirs debate [1] By Joab Jackson
Government Computer News, 12/13/04; Vol. 23 No. 34.

Recently, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that it would make weather data in an open, non-proprietary format (XML).

To what extent should agencies make their data available to the public, and how much should they rely on the private sector to do the job for them?

Commercial providers of weather information worry that NOAA will duplicate industry services and compete with them at taxpayer expense. Advocacy groups fret that NOAA’s material might be given exclusively to media companies, which could resell the information to the public or make it available through advertisement-supported conduits.