For those in the statistics business, web technologies offer the potential to speed the process of collecting data; to reduce the costs associated with collection and processing, and to make data accessible more widely and more timely. It is not surprising, therefore, that national statistical institutes (NSIs), such as the Office for National Statistics (ONS), are racing to embrace the Internet to enhance the service they deliver to government, other customers and to citizens. This is the business imperative. In addition, governments have added political impetus. For example, in the United Kingdom (UK) central government has set a target for all public services to be available on-line by 2005. Similar, but more ambitious, targets have been set in Australia (2001) and Canada (2004). As the number with Internet access grows and people become accustomed to using it, there is likely to be increasing demand from the providers and users of official statistics to use the web for such purposes.