In a statement announcing the partnerships, Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman and CEO, said that Google is involved in several efforts to help government agencies improve public access to information.

"Connecting citizens with their government by offering the public better access to public sector information and services is consistent with our broader vision," Schmidt said, "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

Search Engines Bring Web Tourists

According to a Web site set up by Google for public-sector organizations, up to 80 percent of visitors arrive at government Web sites through search engines. However, because a lot of government information is stored in databases not easily accessible by search-engine crawlers, Web searchers often are unable to find the information for which they are looking.

Google is offering state governments -- at no cost -- two different technologies to improve access to that information. The first is the Sitemap protocol, a mechanism that Web site operators can use to generate a "map" of the site's pages. The map is a list of URLs, expressed in XML format, that can be crawled by search-engine spiders. The protocol is supported by several search engines, including Google.

Google also has made available a Custom Search Engine that state governments can use specifically for searches on their own Web sites. Both Virginia and Utah have implemented the tool on their sites.

State officials seemed pleased with the new resources. "Transparent digital government is a top priority in Virginia," said Virginia Governor Tim Kaine. "Our goal is to provide easy, quick, and intuitive citizen access to every government resource. Google is helping us to achieve it."

Too Much Information?

Some privacy watchdogs, while applauding efforts to open government, nonetheless question whether the Google initiative will make too much information available. Many public records contain confidential information -- such as Social Security numbers -- that can be used to commit identity theft. Public agencies do not have a terrific record of protecting such information.

Just last week, for instance, it was discovered that the Social Security numbers of the recipients of Agriculture Department grants have been freely available online for more than a decade.

In some cases, increased access to public information can be tragic. In 1989, relatively open access to California's driving records, including home addresses, led to the shooting death of actress Rebecca Schaeffer. The tragedy resulted in the passage of the Driver's Privacy Protection Act in 1994, but the law is in danger of being overtaken by new search tools.

It is perhaps telling that on Google's own "Frequently Asked Questions" page for public sector organizations, the word "privacy" does not appear.