Community Participation Sub-Element Policy 7.2A.4 – Identify communications media and telecommunications technology that are appropriate and cost effective to provide information to and access for the community.

The most important considerations to establishing an eBOT are as follows:

• The technology should be reliable.
• The eBOT should be carefully controlled. The authors of eBOT messages must be careful to protect against the perception that they are sending out messages that waste people’s time. The messages sent by the City must be well written and be clearly distinguished from a mass e-mail "spam".
• The technology should be used in conjunction with existing tools, such as the City website, standard City practices for delivering information, etc.
• The eBOT system should be easy to administer and to update so that it doesn’t require additional City resources to maintain it.

If someone is interested in the eBOT service, s/he will be directed to an e-mail sign-up page requesting personal information such as a user name, first and last names, e-mail address and a password. The user will be able to select one or more e-mail groups in which s/he is interested. After signing up, the individual will receive an e-mail confirmation that s/he is registered. In some cases, the website issues a randomly generated password contained in the e-mail confirmation, which the user is asked to change when logging on for the first time. Once the personal profile is set up, the individual will begin to receive automatic e-mail messages relating to the selected areas of interest. The eBOT will be permission-based, and interested parties can elect to use the service or may choose to unsubscribe to the service or delete membership at any time.

In addition, certain City staff will be authorized to establish and maintain e-mail affinity groups. For example, staff may determine the need to establish an e-mail group related to the "Downtown Development" project. Staff would create an e-mail message to be sent to the members of the group and determine the frequency that the message would be sent. A hyperlink in the e-mail message would allow the e-mail recipient to review the supporting materials most recently posted to the City’s website. The e-mail message would be sent automatically based on the established frequency. Staff would also be able to monitor the feedback to the e-mail message to determine how many people looked at the intended web pages, how many people elected to terminate out of the e-mail group, etc.

Each e-mail message will include an option to terminate the receipt of the automatic e-mail notification. The recipient will be able to go to a web page and declare that they no longer wish to receive e-mail messages from this e-mail group. The database will immediately be updated and the person should no longer receive automatic e-mail messages from the e-mail group.

There are some potential downsides to the eBOT program. The City would be collecting personal information on individuals or businesses that create profiles. While all e-mail addresses collected by the City will remain private and will not be distributed to any other parties for any reason, the list of e-mail addresses could become a target for self-mailing viruses that attack these types of lists. There is a possibility of spamming audits and blacklisted e-mail relays over which the City has no control. There could be increased network traffic resulting in the need to purchase additional hardware.

The Information Technology staff, working in partnership with GovPartner, is leading the effort to redesign the City’s website. The IT staff is in the process of putting together a project team including staff from all City departments who will work on the website redesign, including the eBOT feature. The IT Department will also continue to ensure that the appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures are in place to safeguard and secure the information it collects for the entire website, not only for the eBOT program.

The Information Technology staff, working with the Office of the City Attorney, will need to develop a privacy policy and web use policy to be posted on the City’s website. The privacy policy will inform users how the City collects and uses information and whether the City discloses the information to any outside parties so that they can make the appropriate choices on how to set up personal profiles. The web use policy may include information on links to other sites that are contained on the City’s website.