If PA PowerPort is enacted, if the state government pursues it vigorously, and if it all works - VERY big ifs, by the way - the state is going to find itself in need to regulate the use of the Internet for their own needs.

When the state has to promulgate regulations for use of official government web sites, that's understandable - they have to legally define and protect their efforts. If the state pursues efforts that currently are being provided by the private sector, the state will have to promulgate regulations for that effort as well.

Let's say you ran a very large company - one of the 15 largest in the world - and you were going to build an Internet portal that would do what the Administration suggests PA PowerPort would do. Here's some of the technical and staffing issues you would run into:

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The Search Engine:

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How do people submit their site? How often can they submit? How many pages can they submit? Would there be a limit to number of sites submitted?

How long will it take for sites to show up in the search engine? Would we inform the public of a reasonable time frame of expectation?

What is our workload as volume increases in submissions?

How does the Search Engine determine the output? (Alphabetical name of the business? Number of times the search term shows up in the page? Comparing the search term with the site's ranking of popularity on searches from other sites?)

Do we share our output algorithms with everybody?

What do we add as features to our search engine in the future? (If you could look at Yahoo 4 years ago, and compare it to today, you'd realize the phenomenal amount of additional features that have been combined)

What else can we do with the data from submissions to the search engine?

What can we do with the data from searches? How do we collect this data? (One of the important stockholder values in a search engine is the future consumer information usage knowledge it extracts. The search engines, if properly managed, can provide data on when people are most likely to buy Groundhog's Day Greeting Cards, if interest in scanners is seasonal, if people will search for an obscure topic if a high-profile politician mentions it)

What qualifies as "Pennsylvania" for purposes of the portal?

Who are our competitors in this?

Can we beat them? Can we make money at this?

How much will it cost in the long run? How long is the long run?

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Free E-Mail:

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There are thousands of places to go for this already - how do we benefit from this?

How to we maintain privacy of e-mail?

Do we allow advertisers to send e-mail via the service?

(Why the state would even bring this up as an option may be indicative of how little they have thought about the idea. Legal headaches galore. Of course, it could be a good economic development program for developing an attorney niche in the Internet industry.)

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Web Site Development:

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Who are we competing with in this?

(Short answer for today:

• Domain registration companies
• Server space hosting companies
• Site content development companies
• Web Site Development Companies
• Graphic Design Companies
• Site technology and application companies
• Marketing companies
• Strategic Development companies

of course, the answer for tomorrow is unknown)

Apparently, the Governor's office has stated that they have no intention of actually building individual business web sites - which is good to hear. However, if the state gets involved in building community portals, into developing business to business portals, yellow page directories, etc. - and even if they partner in doing so - they are, in essence, building commercial web sites.

Also, in the Governor's original press release, the Governor was quoted as such about PA PowerPort: "...it will make Pennsylvania employers quicker than their competitors. Through the PA PowerPort, they'll be able to take their businesses online in one week -- when it takes their competitors months."

What does that mean? We're not sure - and we're none too excited about the prospect. Pennsylvania employers can already get online in a week (although it's not really advisable - planning IS preferable) - and so can their competitors in other states. How does the state plan to improve on this?

And what is the cost?

The problem is, we have a variety of technical, marketplace and labor issues that will constantly evolve. Those issues will convert to legal issues over time. Business, by design, will try to resolve those issues to the satisfaction of the competitive marketplace in order to make a profit. Government, on the other hand, doesn't have a competitive marketplace. Yet, if the state tries to compete with any hope of success, they will have to not only resolve the technical issues, but also the legal issues that arise from them. Beforehand. To limit liability. This means one thing:

Regulation.

There will have to be regulation and standards that legally protect the government in their online pursuits but will invade on the options of the marketplace if the state is to pursue the PowerPort agenda. It doesn't take much time looking at Internet Industry news - just look at the Industry Standard a couple of times - and you'll realize that the number of legal issues arising from the Internet on a daily basis is somewhat staggering. In fact, many of the questions above are components of real private industry legal battles.

For the most part, these are being resolved in the Judicial branch, case by case... which is how reactive policy should be developed. And because there is so much change occurring, policy has to be reactive.

Being first in the nation with a state portal will also mean we will be first in the nation with state regulation evolving around it. The bigger the portal, the greater the regulation required.

In the next few weeks, we'll be working on putting together a bulletin board so that Pennsylvania's Internet Public can weigh in on the various issues involved in PA PowerPort, and other state-proposed activities relative to the Internet. If there is to be a statewide policy on commercial development of the Internet in Pennsylvania, we believe it should be open source development for the community it directly impacts - those of us online - and we think this is a good step towards doing so. And if there shouldn't be a statewide policy at this point, it will be a good place to list the myriad of reasons against it.