Google Provides $2 Million to law.gov

There is some pretty good news for those who support free and open access to U.S. government documents. Google has announced that they are providing $2 million to Public Resource.com to help finance the Law.gov project. Here is a description of the project from the Law.gov website -

Law.Gov is an idea, an idea that the primary legal materials of the United States should be readily available to all, and that governmental institutions should make these materials available in bulk as distributed, authenticated, well-formatted data.

Google announced the grant last Friday on the Google Blog, here. The grant is part of their Project 10^100 which lives on their website, here.

Right now there are several government websites that disseminate authenticated data (GPO, Regulations.gov, and others) but they are not always comprehensive or easy to search. Law.gov may be exactly what is needed to promote transparency in government.