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The United States Department of Commerce - STAT-USA

The Economics and Statistics Administration of the US Department of Commerce has recently set up a Web server site with the title STAT-USA, to provide a government-backed public information service of massive scope. This action was initiated in direct response to Vice President Gore's call for the setting up of an Information Superhighway, which so captured the public and media imagination. STAT-USA gathers together a broad range of information from over 50 different Federal sources, covering economic, business, social and environmental topics. The information is available on the Internet, not only via the Web, but also through Gopher and FTP systems.

Since an enormous volume of information is being made available, a phased implementation was deemed appropriate. The first phase covers financial, economic and trade data, and includes analyses of export opportunities in specific countries and industries, research reports, labour statistics, price indexes and worldwide listings of businesses interested in purchasing US products. Information will subsequently be provided (and probably is, by the time you read this) on demographic and social statistics, Federal rules and regulations, health care, welfare proposals, and many related topics.

Access by remote log-in via the Telnet system to the Economic Bulletin Board is also available. This is said to be the `world's leading source of government-sponsored business data' providing a frequently updated business news service, plus detailed analyses of economic trends, markets, products and so on. Although there is a two-tier fee system for the service, which differentiates between private individuals and institutions and access is limited by the use of passwords, STAT-USA is essentially a public service, and this is reflected in the modesty of the charges.

Spinning the Web by Andrew Ford
© 1995 International Thomson Publishing
© 2002 Andrew Ford and Ford & Mason Ltd
Note: this HTML document was generated in December 1994 directly from the LaTeX source files using LaTeX2HTML. It was formatted into our standard page layout using the Template Toolkit. The document is mainly of historical interest as obviously many of the sites mentioned have long since disappeared.