Summary: A GAO survey found that 42 federal agencies spent nearly $350 million on Internet and electronic dial-up bulletin board activities in fiscal years 1994 through 1996. The bulk of these expenditures went for providing employees access to the Internet and establishing and maintaining sites on the World Wide Web. The 42 agencies reported having a total of about 4,300 web sites and about 215 electronic bulletin boards. Although there are no governmentwide policies governing employee use of the Internet, most federal agency guidance prohibits nonofficial uses. The potential exists for misuse of government-provided Internet resources--as it does for other government equipment, such as telephones and copying machines. Some federal agencies reported instances of what they viewed to be employee misuse, including accessing inappropriate material on the Internet and establishing web sites without official approval. A supplement to this report (World Wide Web Sites Reported by Federal Organizations, GAO/GGD-97-86S, June 1997) lists about 4,300 web sites reported by federal agencies. That document is available only on the Internet.
