A new search engine that focuses on information from US government sources was opened in May. Search, the service is jointly produced by search engine Northern Light and the U.S. Commerce Department's National Technical Information Service through a five-year agreement. The service is unusual for the web in that searching is not free.
Special pricing is also available to companies and organizations that require multiple accounts.
The idea of having to pay for using the service raised some criticism when it was initially announced, causing the fee structure to be put on hold through May. Indeed, I had an initial negative reaction to the idea that a service coproduced by the US government would be charging US taxpayers, among others, to access its information. The reality is much more positive, as I'll explain below. But first, let's have a closer look at how the service works. Northern Light has now indexed about 4 million web pages located on more than 20,000 US government servers, which also include military and some educational sites.