Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Chief Technology Officer Vivek Kundra announced today that the District Government is partnering with Google Inc. to make it easier for residents to access information on government programs and services. The Mayor announced that the city's website--dc.gov--is now powered by Google's search technology, making it faster and easier for residents to find the information they need. The partnership will also make available public information that was previously not accessible through Google.com and other search engines.
"DC is committed to 21st-century technology," said Mayor Fenty. “This will provide our residents with quick and intuitive access to DC Government’s online resources. “We’re excited to be partnering with Google to make it possible."
“Information technology is essential to the Mayor’s vision of positioning the District as a technology leader and innovator on a global scale,” said Kundra. “Google's search technology makes it faster and easier to accurately find the information that residents, businesses and visitors need."
The search function at dc.gov is now powered by Google. Using the Google Search Appliance™ hardware and software, the website harnesses Google's search algorithms to index publicly available information and deliver relevant search results.
As part of this partnership, the District has also begun to implement a new technology known as the Sitemap protocol, which provides web search engines like Google the ability to index public databases. As a result, District residents can now more easily find public records such as contracts and procurements by the District Government.
"The best citizens are the most informed ones. Google is very pleased to partner with the District of Columbia to make it easier to discover and access public information and government services," said Vinton G. Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google. "Google is dedicated to organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful. We feel very aligned with the District of Columbia in pursuit of this goal."
You can learn more at google.com/publicsector/index.html. Visit dc.gov to use the new search feature powered by Google.
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