“Basis for a thousand search engines – The EU wants to build a public web index by 2025” | c’t

“Does it always have to be Google or Bing? With the OpenWebSearch project, the EU wants to protect its sovereignty on the Internet. The goal is a freely accessible web directory that feeds diverse search engines and language models and should trigger a boom in new web services.”

In the German IT and tech magazine c’t, journalist Arne Grävemeyer takes a detailed look at the EU project openwebsearch.eu, with which 13 European organisations are pushing the development of an open web index. Michael Granitzer (University of Passau, OSF and project lead of openwebsearch.eu), Stefan Voigt (Open Search Foundation, DLR), Christian Gütl (Graz University of Technology) and Phil Höfer (SuMa e.V./MetaGer) have their say. The article is in German, here are some quotes:

“But what could you do with a large web index if it were freely available to the public? One could build alternative search engines or specialised search services according to selected topics. Users would have free choice and could better protect their private user profiles. Linguists could use the data pool of a large web index to follow how our language is developing, and sociologists could observe how we interact with each other in the social media. Web services could use it to look for clues to incipient pandemics or other catastrophic events and thus build an early warning system.”

“We are not a European Google,” says Michael Granitzer, Chair of Data Science at the University of Passau, who is coordinating the OpenWebSearch project. He says the project is not about building a large search engine, but much more fundamentally about establishing an infrastructure that search engines and other services can later work with. Google’s size is certainly out of reach at the beginning. “It will be more like Wikipedia, which started with a small core compared to large publishers and then grew continuously.”

“Even at the start of the project, and thus before the hype around ChatGPT, the partners considered the Open Web Index, with its focus on European content and languages, as a data pool for specialised language models. New search engines could also immediately use these models as an interface for search queries. “Users are usually not looking for links, but for answers to their questions or even suggested solutions,” says Gütl. That speaks for the use of chatbots, he says.”

“In terms of Europe’s digital sovereignty, the Open Web Index can certainly be seen as a critical infrastructure. The project partners hope that it will create transparent structures on the web. The envisaged European web index promises more plurality and hopefully benefits above all those who simply provide the best and most reliable information on their websites.”

Online version of the (german) article (paywall) at heise.de

Links to Open Web Search, compiled by c’t: ct.de/y6sw

Third-Party Call #1: Media Release

First EU project on Open Web Search launches third-party call –
An invitation to advance R&D for a new Internet Search in Europe

OpenWebSearch.EU – a consortium of 14 research partners – is open for third-party proposals to help building an Open and independent Web-Index based on European values (OWI). The first call addresses business and research partners to submit their applications in two tracks from March 1st until April 28th, 2023.

Read more

“The Open Web Search project, Interview Michael Granitzer” | Deutschlandfunk

“Transparency means that everyone has the same information, with the same effort, which – in my opinion – then makes it fairer.” – Prof. Dr. Michael Granitzer from University of Passau, project lead of openwebsearch.eu, in a short radio interview with Manfred Kloiber from Deutschlandfunk.

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“Missing link: Open web index to make Europe independent in searching” | California18

“With a market share of over 90 percent, Google is regularly the number one search engine in Europe. Since 2004, googling has been officially listed as a verb in the dictionary and stands for searching or researching on the Internet with the application of the subsidiary of the US umbrella company Alphabet. As the gateway for a large number of Europeans and citizens worldwide, Google not only opens up information, but also helps determine their view of the Internet and the things depicted on it.”…

Read the full blog article at California18:
https://california18.com/missing-link-open-web-index-to-make-europe-independent-in-searching/9087352023/

“Missing Link: Open web index to make Europe independent in searching” | heise online

“With a publicly viewable source code, I can learn and, more importantly, verify exactly what the search engine is storing about me” – Wolfgang Sander-Beuermann from Suma e.V., a project partner of openwebsearch.eu, and many other voices of the OpenWebSearch.EU’s project resp. of the Open Search Community have their say at heise online.

Find the article at heise online (German):
https://www.heise.de/hintergrund/Missing-Link-Offener-Web-Index-soll-Europa-bei-der-Suche-unabhaengig-machen-7466867.html?seite=all

“Starnbergers against Google power: How the Open Search Foundation wants to change the internet” | Merkur

In the German daily “Merkur”, Christine Plote and Dr Stefan Voigt, board members of the Open Search Foundation, one of openwebsearch.eu’s project partners, talk about Open Search and the EU project openwebsearch.eu. Read more

“Another attempt to create a European Google: the Czech Republic joins OpenWebSearch ” | Lupa.cz

“In Europe, more plans are afoot to create a local web search engine that would weaken the dominant Google. In September, the OpenWebSearch project was set in motion, involving fourteen European research and supercomputing centres. Among them is the Czech national supercomputing centre IT4Innovations in Ostrava. However, Germany holds the majority role in the project.”

Read the full article “Další pokus o vytvoření evropského Googlu: do OpenWebSearch se zapojuje i Česko” at Lupa.cz:
https://www.lupa.cz/clanky/dalsi-pokus-o-vytvoreni-evropskeho-googlu-do-openwebsearch-se-zapojuje-i-cesko/

“Europe builds its own internet search engine” | OI Canadian

OI Canadian | 21 September 2022

“The OpenWebSearch.EU project is working on a European alternative to Google in the field of online search To foster an open and human-centric search engine market”

Read the full article at OI Canadian:
https://oicanadian.com/the-openwebsearch-eu-project-is-working-on-a-european-alternative-to-google-in-the-field-of-online-search-to-foster-an-open-and-human-centric-search-engine-market/

“Europe builds its own internet search engine” | Tiroler Tageszeitung

Tiroler Tageszeitung | 28 August 2022

“The European answer to Google and Co. should be more open and at the same time better protect privacy. Austrian researchers are also involved.
Google, Microsoft Bing, Baidu, Yandex – the search for information on the internet is dominated by only a few private providers. With the support of the EU’s Horizon Europe funding programme, a European alternative to the market-dominating providers is to be developed. 14 research and computing centres in Europe are working on the large-scale project – from Austria, the Institute of Interactive Systems and Data Science at TU Graz is involved, the university announced.”

Read the full article at Tiroler Tageszeitung (German):
https://www.tt.com/artikel/30830068/europa-bastelt-sich-seine-eigene-internet-suchmaschine

“EU researchers want to revolutionise search on the internet” | Niederösterreichische Nachrichten

Niederösterreichische Nachrichten | 24 August 2022

“Google, Microsoft Bing, Baidu,Yandex – the search for information on the internet is dominated by only a few private providers. With the support of the EU’s Horizon Europe funding programme, a European alternative to the market-dominating providers is to be developed. 14 research and computing centres in Europe are working on the large-scale project – from Austria, the Institute of Interactive Systems and Data Science at TU Graz is involved, the university announced on Wednesday …”

Read full article “” (German): https://www.noen.at/in-ausland/suchmaschinen-eu-forscher-wollen-suche-im-internet-revolutionieren-deutschland-forschung-online-medien-software-steiermark-333598881