  One of the key experimental issues in high energy hadron physics is the
extent to which data from the diffractive interaction mechanism may be
described by a factorized formula which is the product of a universal term
describing the probability of finding a Pomeron in a proton (loosely referred
to as the "Pomeron flux-factor") and a term decribing the Pomeron's interaction
with the other incident proton. In the present paper, after demonstrating that
existing data on diffractive gamma*-p and pbar-p interactions show that the
Pomeron flux-factor is not universal, we present the results of a new test of
factorization in these interactions which does not rely on universality of the
flux-factor. The test is satisfied to within ~20% for 1 < Q^2 ~ 6 GeV^2 and
beta < 0.2 in the gamma*-p interactions, suggesting that the resons for
non-universality of the flux-factor have a limited effect on the factorization
itself. However, a clear breakdown of this test is observed at larger Q^2.
Kharzeev and Levin suggest that this can be attributed to the onset of QCD
evolution effects in the Pomeron's structure. The breakdown occurs in a Q^2
region which agrees with their estimates of a small Pomeron size.
