Today the company s America Online unit launched an expanded version of its government portal that offers additional information on state and local governments. The original version of AOL s GovernmentGuide, introduced in 1999, included 6,000 web sites of federal agencies. It s a work in progress, says Kathleen deLaski, a group director at America Online who conceived the mega government site. A big problem is that an estimated 20 percent of the country s local governments don t have an online presence, deLaski said in an interview today at the Global Internet Summit at George Mason University in Fairfax. The new service will provide information such as where to purchase hunting licenses or the names of elected officials by state, county or city governments.
Local information is accessed by typing a zip code on the site.
While AOL says the updated guide is the most comprehensive listing of government agencies and services available on the Internet, there is still a long way to go before it can claim access to each of the estimated 80,000 U.S. governmental units. Within a year, the company hopes to include over 250,000 government sites in the guide.