Google is already a major part of our lives. The popular search engine has become one of our dearest friends; we use it anytime and it helps us find out about virtually everything we are interested in. Thanks to Google and Wikipedia, we can throw away our old, heavy dictionaries, as information is much easier to access while online.

However, there is one area where Google can’t help us too much: when we use the search engine to get information about governmental issues, we won’t often get too much. Although the popular tool proves helpful in any other domain, when it comes to official institutions Google is very much likely to be ineffective.

So, this is why Google and Wikipedia’s executives considered that they should do something about it. Yesterday they told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs’ officials about this problem and urged Congress to require federal agencies to make their web sites, databases and records more searchable and thus, accessible.

The Government databases represent a treasure trove of random data, but people are always unable to access it because search engines can’t locate the data they are interested in. Government web sites such as USA.gov, the United States government’s official web portal, allow people to search within the web site for information, which is are not accessible also via search engines. Thus, average web users will never be able to find what they are looking for.

"It could be unintentional oversight or incompetence," said Ari Schwartz, deputy director for the Center for Democracy and Technology.

The Tuesday hearing came after almost five years after the E-Governmental Act first required government agencies to make information more accessible electronically. The law is set to be re-authorized soon.