open government data : "Open Data is the idea that data should be freely available for everyone to access, use and republish as they wish, published without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control. Public sector information made available to the public as open data is termed ‘Open Government Data’. Governments and their contractors collect a vast quantity of high-quality data as part of their ordinary working activities. Typically this results in the state becoming a powerful data monopoly able to structure and homogenize the interactions between itself and its citizens. These one-sided interactions are expensive and unresponsive to citizens’ needs and can unnecessarily restrict government activities, as well. ….¶ Where many public records laws and policies regulating the right to information [link] have traditionally relied on reactive disclosure, meaning public information has to be requested before it is shared, a government fully engaged in open data is choosing to proactively disclose information - meaning public data is released as it is collected and before it is requested. Put another way, the vision of open data is for government information to be ‘open by default’. Open data also has a number of technical implications, with special consideration given to the particular formats chosen for data release. Open formats are those that are structured and non-proprietary, allowing the public and the government to extract maximum value from the information now and in the future." (†342)
