FCC to preserve all blog comments on regulatory actions
The Federal Communications Commission will now include blog comments from the public as part of the commission's official record for regulatory actions.
The Federal Communications Commission will now include blog comments from the public as part of the commission's official record for regulatory actions, according to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.
The FCC began preserving blog comments to increase agency transparency and to encourage more public involvement, Genachowski said at the Gov 2.0 Summit conference in Washington this week.
“We now have 650,000 people commenting and participating, up from a little over zero at this time last year,” Genachowski said.
The FCC also has added new interactive applications to its Web site to make more data available to the public, and has become active on more than a dozen social media sites.
The new applications available on FCC.gov/developer include License View, which is a searchable database of FCC spectrum licenses, and Consumer Broadband Test, which provides information to consumers on how fast the Internet is operating in their counties. The FCC Registration database offers registration data, and the FCC Census Block Search application offers data based on census tracts.
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“We are committed to unlocking our agency’s data in open, interchangeable, machine-readable formats,” Genachowski said.
FCC Managing Director Steven VanRoekel said the commission's site is undergoing its first redesign in 10 years to “maximize value” for customers. The site will measure its performance in terms of participation and effect.
“It will [tract application] be the first tool of its kind,” VanRoekel said. “It is exciting to reach across government to see all the data that is locked by census tract.”