Resolving Conflicts Arising from the Privatization of Environmental Data (2001)

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INTRODUCTION 11 Commercialization refers to the private exploitation of government data chiefly for the purpose of financial gain. Government commercialization refers to government agencies charging the public for information services that were previously considered a “public good” and financed by general tax revenue.b Privatization refers to the transfer of management and control from the government to a private company or other nongovernmental organization.c a Adapted and expanded from NRC, 1995, Preserving Scientific Data on Our Physical Universe: A New Strategy for Archiving the Nation's Scientific Information Resources. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., p. 10. b P.M.Weiss and P.Backlund, 1997, International information policy in conflict: Open and unrestricted access versus government commercialization, in Borders in Cyberspace: Information Policy and the Global Information Infrastructure, B.Kahin and C.Nesson, eds., MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, p. 300–321. c NRC, 1997, Bits of Power: Issues in Global Access to Scientific Data. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 235 pp. THE INFORMATION TREE This report portrays the elements of a typical environmental information system in terms of a simple analogy: an “information tree” (see Figure 1.1). The tree consists of four parts, each of which is operated by individuals working in a variety of settings (universities, government centers, commercial organizations), either independently or as members of national or international coalitions: 1. The roots represent data collection, in which instruments of varying sophistication are deployed and operated to collect raw data. 2. The trunk represents the synthesis of all available information, including new and retrospective (looking backward) raw data as well as processed information, into a limited set of core products that are useful for many purposes and serve multiple users. 3. The branches represent the transformation of the core products to value-added products designed to serve a specific user need. 4. The leaves represent the end uses of core and value-added products. 

INTRODUCTION 12 The tree also provides a means of identifying where conflicts may arise among the five stakeholder groups and where negotiations should take place. FIGURE 1.1 Schematic tree used to illustrate the elements of an environmental information system created for public purposes. Observations recorded in the roots are synthesized in the trunk and are distributed by many branches for different groups of end uses that are represented by the leaves. The information needs that these users have in common place requirements on the whole structure beneath, including the types of measurements made and the products synthesized from them. A more detailed version of the same figure is given in Figure 3.1.