FCC WEB SITE MAY GET MAKEOVER WIDELY SEEN AS LONG OVERDUE

摘要

Government, industry and other officials are pushing for the FCC's Web site to be redesigned. It got top honors in a 2002 Brown University report on federal Web sites but hasn't received a significant make-over since. With a new federal emphasis on openness, and techie Julius Genachowski expected to become the FCC's chairman, many believe the site may get an overhaul. "The site is an embarrassment" for the Web-savvy Obama administration, said Jerry Brito of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Saying the commission must be more open, acting Chairman Michael Copps and Commissioner Robert McDowell have led the call for a revamp. Last week, Copps told FCC aides that the site "has a wealth of resources," but "much of it is, unfortunately, difficult to locate and even more difficult to use." nnA redesign probably won't be complete until the FCC gets a new chairperson, he said. McDowell said he wants the FCC to start a "formal process" to seek improvements and "cast the net as widely as possible to harvest as many ideas as we can find," he added. "At this stage I think just about all ideas are good ideas, and sparking this kind of brainstorming and discussion is precisely the goal I had in mind." The FCC must make its Web site more accessible to users who aren't lawyers or executives, said six members of the FCC's Consumer Advisory Committee. They all said the Web site needs improvement. Committee member Charles Benton, the chairman of the Benton Foundation, called FCC.gov "a great tool for lobbyists." Now it "needs to become a tool of the people," he said.