Most governments have used taxpayer dollars and charged transaction fees, while shying away from advertising. Now, however, they're warily looking at advertising and pondering potential conflicts of interest and concerns over implied endorsements of advertisers' products or services. So far, the public doesn't seem all that concerned about those issues. Honolulu has received only one complaint about its advertising, saying the ad could be viewed as an endorsement. In the Internet culture today, seeing an ad on a Web site is not an endorsement.
People understand that.
Another government site that will be sprouting ads, perhaps by the end of the year, will be that of Salt Lake City, home to the 2002 Winter Olympics. The city is expected to get a lot of Internet traffic from all over the world in the next two years, and the Web ads can serve as an economic development tool. Likely advertisers will be airlines, hotels and local companies trying to reach world travel and tourism markets. The New York City Board of Education is now stirring controversy over a plan to use advertising and sponsorship revenue to pay for technology in the schools. The revenues would fund a program that would provide portable computers, Internet service and e-mail to teachers, administrators and students from the fourth grade up, starting in 2001.