Proceedings of the seminar Free accessibility of geo-information in the Netherlands, the United States and the European Community October 2, 1998

In the Netherlands there are numerous governmental agencies that maintain geo-data sets. When members of the private sector try to get access to such data, often high prices are charged and conditions limiting resale are enforced. Some of these agencies are actively creating value added data-products themselves. All in all, the private sector in the Netherlands rarely produces enhanced geo-data products. Recently this drew the attention of the government and several policy documents aiming at easier access to government-held data and the grow of a private sector data industry have been produced. The current practice, the desired situation and the new policies are presented and discussed in these proceedings. Attention is also paid to the situation abroad, with the emphasis on the United States where a very different situation exists. Due to a variety of explicit policies and free access to federal information, many value adding companies are active on the geo-information market there. A comparative study of several European countries is presented as weil. These proceedings give a better understanding of the situation regarding the accessibility and commercialization of geo-information in the Netherlands within an extensive international setting. Hopefully the papers and the discussion will contribute to the improvement of the new policies and their implementation