Jane Martinson in New York Struggling dot.com enter- prises face a new competitor in the battle for online sales the United States government. Newly published research shows that the world’s largest online retailer is not a former bookseller but the administration itself, which sold $3,6-billion worth of goods last year. In contrast, Amazon previously regarded as the world’s leading online retailer reported net sales of $2,8-billion last year. Last year the US government sold everything from wild mustangs and former coast guards’ houses to reproductions of John F Kennedy’s rocking chair on 164 websites, according to research carried out by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a non-profit organisation, and Federal Computer Week.
Unlike most dot.coms, there is little pressure on the government to make money from these sales. Lee Rainie, director of the Pew-funded project, said: “Most [government officials] say that the principal virtue is to improve efficiency and to introduce themselves to a wider audience.” Treasury Direct, run by the US treasury department, accounts for the vast majority of government sales online. It sold $3,3-billion in US savings and treasury bonds last year. Rainie said the Web was allowing the government to cut out the intermediary, or broker, who usually sold these government-issued securities. Other successful sites include at least eight maintained by the defence department, which sells to anybody with official identification, and adoptahorse.blm.gov, a site run by the Bureau of Land Management, which sells wild mustangs in a bid to control the herds on state-owned land. The Pew’s report suggests that this online success comes in spite of a “haphazard” approach adopted by the US government. “There are few rules and even fewer standards for conducting business,” it said.
So-called dot-gov receipts are not carefully tracked revenues are either deposited in a general fund or used to add features. Meanwhile in Britain, Labour has made no secret of its desire to put more government business online. It has made a pledge to offer all services via the Net by 2005. The US government’s efforts have attracted some criticism, however. Jakob Neilsen, a Silicon Valley consultant, said the government has an unfair advantage because it does not need to make a profit.