Battleangel

Via Slashdot …

Do you want a seven-day weather forecast for your ZIP code? Or hour-by-hour predictions of the temperature, wind speed, humidity and chance of rain? Or weather data beamed to your cellphone?

That information is available for free from the National Weather Service.

But under a bill pending in the U.S. Senate, it might all disappear.

The bill, introduced last week by Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., would prohibit federal meteorologists from competing with companies such as AccuWeather and The Weather Channel, which offer their own forecasts through paid services and free ad-supported Web sites.

Source: Palm Beach Post

The bill is specifically targeting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which has made more and more data available online in a free, clean and accessible format. The snag here is of course that the bill says nothing about the details of what would be taken down. NOAA provides a lot more data than just North American weather forecasts. Their online satellite imagery for example.

The interesting thing is obviously that this is just the latest in a long line of shrewd attempts of monopolizing and using legislation to accomplish what your business concept can not. It’s ugly.
What is furthermore baffling is that NOAA is payed for by, you guess it, taxes. Hence some might argue that since the people payed for it, the people ought to be able to access the information. And not have to pay for it a second time. But that is not how the winds are blowing in corporate America. And God knows those black winds of pestilence will soon be blowing over the Atlantic and catching European legislators.