National policy has sought to capitalize on the research Volume 37, Number 3, June 1996 p.562 potential of interlinked university and government networks to advance science and technology and to regain U.S. economic supremacy. This strategy has resulted in U.S. dominance over the international system. Uneven distribution is even more marked in the developing world. Recent changes in legislation and funding have allowed the system to include commercial services, which are now more prominent than the nonprofit sector. Participating institutions pay a fixed access fee.
Universities usually absorb total costs to provide free services to their own faculty and students.
They also make their files available to remote users without charge. This broad accessibility reflects the original academic mandate of the system as well as an explicit ethos supporting open exchanges of scholarly information. In accordance with these values, more general Internet communication tends to be unrestricted and fundamentally impossible to regulate. In addition to academic exchange, this openness has fostered new political and social forces. Radical and reformist groups have utilized Internet communication to circumvent official channels in advancing their causes.