From Indian gov site.

India's Y2K Web Site rated highly Informative

A relatively tiny number of countries have "highly informative" Y2K-related Websites and roughly half of the nations polled in a recent survey have no nationally run Y2K Websites, according to a report released today. The United States, Canada and Mexico were among 22 countries found to have "highly informative" Y2K Websites in a survey by the International Y2K Cooperation Center. The survey polled nearly 200 countries, finding 22 with "highly informative" sites, 15 with "somewhat informative" sites 23 with "limited" sites, 47 with non-English sites and 87 with no sites. The findings are somewhat troubling, Center Director Bruce McConnell told Newsbytes today. "There is definitely lots of room for improvement," he said. Part of the goal of the survey is to prod countries with poor or nonexistent Websites to put good Y2K information online, McConnell said. "People are going to make decisions based on available information. You can tell your story or you can have someone else tell it for you," he warned. Y2K Websites were deemed to be "highly informative" if they contained dates for the implementation and testing of Y2K remediation efforts in the "three most critical sectors - energy, telecom and finance," McConnell said. In addition to the United States, Canada and Mexico: Australia, Botswana, Chile, France, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, Kenya, Lithuania, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Singapore, South Africa, Uganda, and the United Kingdom were deemed to have highly informative sites. The Cooperation Center did not have the resources to make qualitative judgements regarding the 47 non-English sites, McConnell said. While McConnell concedes that such sites may be useful, he argues that good Y2K Websites should have an English component. "If part of the purpose of (Y2K sites) is to inform people in other countries, than the (information on the sites) probably needs to be in English," McConnell said. The International Y2K Cooperation Center is an independent entity founded by the United Nations and funded by the World Bank. A full copy of the survey including a list of all countries polled is available on the center's Website, located at http://www.iy2kcc.org .

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), August 24, 1999