Imagine that the U.S. government didn't have a Web site and that instead executive agencies uploaded raw data files to the Internet. Though that might seem ripe for chaos, some academics working at Princeton University's Center for Information Technology Policy believe it would actually be an improvement. This assertion is printed in a paper, Government Data and the Invisible Hand, published in the fall 2008 issue of the Yale Journal of Law and Technology.

"Our argument is simply that the first thing [government] should focus on is making sure that the data is available for people to reuse," said one of the paper's authors, center Associate Director David Robinson. "Then, if they want to also build a Web portal of their own that has branding on it - it kind of gives government a chance to tell people about what else they are doing and whatever else they might want to do - that's absolutely fine. But that really shouldn't be the first priority."

The academics' thinking is that citizens can do a more efficient job of serving their needs if they are allowed to build their own Web sites that serve end-users. Robinson said GovTrack, which tracks the workings of Congress, is one example of a third-party Web unaffiliated with the government in this category.

"We would like to see a world where [governments] put all the data online and let anyone who wants to build a Web site to search it," he said. "Not because we think every citizen will build a Web site - we don't think every citizen wants to build a Web site - but we do think that there is a critical mass of people out there who want to."