Who knew that the Paperwork Reduction Act could prevent government agencies from launching social media apps on their websites, but the worry was sufficient to prompt the Obama administration to clarify the matter. No need to fear the PRA, declared White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs administrator Cass Sunstein in a memo published on Wednesday.

"Agencies and members of the public have asked whether uses of social media and Web-based interactive technologies are information collections subject to the PRA," Sunstein noted. "Although certain uses of such media and technologies unquestionably count as information collections, many do not." The advisory was released as a slew of federal departments are disclosing plans to make their websites more accessible and useful.

Forms for forms

Funny thing—it turns out that no matter how well intentioned lawmakers are when they approve some momentous legislation, sooner or later it will stand in the way of something good. The PRA, enacted into law in 1980, was designed to reign in that tyrannical weapon which the government inflicts upon the public from time to time: the information collection form.

These forms can be necessary and useful, but they can also burden businesses and public institutions like schools or hospitals. Thanks to the PRA, not only do government agencies have to go through a complex process to justify whatever data gathering activity they've got in mind, they have to fill out a form to get permission from the Office of Management and Budget to create a new form.

That's right. There's a form for the form, specifically OMB Form 83 (in case you're tempted to fill it out, don't bother; you've got to get a "control number" from the OMB to do so).

Three decades after the passage of the PRA, the problem now is that this worthy effort to reign in government form lust could also inhibit federal departments from putting up all kinds of nifty wikis, blogs, chat boards, and such, since they could be interpreted by the folks over at OMB as forms as well.

But here's the good news, says Sunstein (who, by the way, has written extensively about the Web). There are three categories of data that the OMB excludes from the PRA. The first are "facts or opinions submitted in response to general solicitations of comments," next comes "facts or opinions obtained or solicited at or in connection with public hearings or meetings," and finally, "like items" that are not "information"—in other words, whatever else the OMB thinks goes along with the first two categories.

Keep it unstructured

The "general solicitation" category means that as long as government agencies solicit online comments or feedback in an "unstructured" way, they're good to go. So a text box that asks for comments on a public statement is fine. This opens the door to "blogs; microblogs; audio, photo, or video sharing websites; or online message boards (whether hosted on a .gov domain or by a third-party provider)," the memo explains.

Add to the whitelist suggestion boxes or e-mail addresses where users can send an agency their ideas, user login accounts, forms that let the public sign up for government news, statements, and alerts, and wikis in which participants can add content. Sites that post proposals and users to rank are also acceptable, as are tag clouds and login options that allow users to modify the site or filter data.

Even contests are permissible. "An agency might ask the general public for ideas for improving current practices under a statute that it administers, for potential solutions to a scientific, technological, social, or other problem, or for innovations (e.g., video and software applications) that might advance an agency’s mission," the memo explains. "These general requests do not become subject to the PRA merely because they take the form of a contest, or because the agency announces that it will give a prize to the best submissions."

But the trick is to not get too specific with any of this stuff. Be careful not to ask anyone for user data beyond names and mailing addresses, the advisory adds, such as age, gender, job, ethnicity, or citizenship information. The PRA covers all that, because it goes beyond the basic data Web users need to identify themselves. The philosophy seems to be that as long as the website solicits feedback and participation, but not demographic data, it's not covered by the PRA.

Not for policy or planning

Finally, the memo warns government agencies not to get too wild with all this Web stuff:

"OMB recommends . . . that agencies exercise good judgment and caution when using rankings, ratings, or tagging. Specifically, agency use of the information generated by these tools should be limited to organizing, ranking, and sorting comments. Because, in general, the results of online rankings, ratings, and tagging (e.g., number of votes or top rank) are not statistically generalizable, they should not be used as the basis for policy or planning."

So don't expect the Federal Communications Commission to decide on which section in the Communications Act it should base its proposed Open Internet rules via a poll taken on broadband.gov (sorry).