An organized design of the totality of information available about USDA is critical to the presentation of an accurate, overall picture of the USDA rather than one that is piecemeal, misleading, or incomplete. Home pages are public documents accessible through an international network and must be designed with the realization there will be worldwide access to them. Web servers referenced in this policy provide open service to the public and must accept outside users without requiring either a local user account or password. Federal agencies and employees are encouraged to maintain open communication with the public, recognizing the increased authority brings a new level of responsibility to each employee to use this forum wisely in serving the interests of the public. Agencies may charge for providing data or information discovered through browsing the USDA Web network, but these charges may not exceed the marginal cost of dissemination.
Security is a major consideration in the implementation of any open, public access system.
The extent to which the system is protected with firewalls and other isolation techniques must be included in the planned approach for implementing a home page. Agency security officers must be consulted in the design, implementation, and operation of home pages and associated links to other systems. See additional security references in Section 3. USDA employees establishing personal home pages accessible by the public must follow the guidelines outlined in this regulation. There are no restrictions on the use of Web servers and browser software for strictly internal, non-public use.