Update from OWS.EU partner projects: Part 1

In November 2023 OWS.EU successfully onboarded six new partner projects looking into technical, legal and economic research topics in support of the European Open Web Index that is currently in the making. The projects were selected in 2023 following an open call. Currently projects from the second and third calls are being reviewed with updates following soon.

Market potential assessment by Mücke Roth & Company

One of the endeavours from call #1 was the MRC project, dealing with economical questions related to an Open Web Index. The project was initiated by Mücke Roth & Company (MRC) with the goal to assess the market potential of OWS.EU.

The analysis is already fully executed, with a comprehensive study on the market potential of OWS.EU being the major result of the project. The study that has revealed substantial economic and societal benefits of OWS.EU will be presented to the public in autumn 2024.

Key achievements of the MRC work include a cost-benefit analysis, the identification of key customer segments and market dynamics through competitor benchmarking and a quantification of the European search engine market potential.

Figure 1: Share of Benefits & Costs on Net Benefit over time (Market Potential Assessment for OWS.EU by Mücke Roth & Company)

Last but not least, the assessment incorporates additional customer feedback and further interviews validating the findings of the MRC project. Strategic recommendations were provided to OWS.EU by the MRC team based on the results of their work.

Currently implications of the EU AI Act are monitored in order to adapt the strategy in case new regulations may arise.

More about the MRC project

Legal, Intellectual Property & Cyber Security Aspects of Open Web Search

The OWS.EU-Project raises a multitude of highly complex legal questions. LISA (Legal, Intellectual Property and Cyber-Security Aspects) is one of the legal projects that has taken the challenge to determine legal questions, identify relevant legal risks and adequately address them. The goal is to define a legal framework for the development and operation of an Open Web Search Index.

In the first half of the project, the team around Prof. Dr. Matthias Wendland from the University of Oldenburg defined what constitutes illegal content and established the legal duties for operators of an Open Web Index. Legal requirements for takedown requests, including those for criminal content, IP infringements, and data protection were set out. Additionally, the ownership of digital content and of the Open Web Index was clarified and the legal framework necessary for sharing the index was created. Furthermore, the team drafted an End User License Agreement (EULA).

Figure 2: Data Centers & Legal Territoriality in OWS.EU (from the LISA framework)

In the remaining time of the LISA project, the team plans to focus on the design of a comprehensive legal framework for the Open Web Index, including governance structures and guidelines as well as best practices for its operation. Additionally, the End User License Agreement (EULA) to facilitate the sharing and usage of the index will be finalized and European legislative acts that came into force recently, will be monitored closely and incorporated to project’s plans and policies when necessary.

More about the LISA project

 

Nine projects selected to work with OWS.EU

Nine new projects will support our quest for a better European Web Search from July 2024 onwards. The projects are the winners of the last OWS.EU third-party calls #2 and #3, which opened in February 2024 and closed in April 2024.

The nine winners were selected from 49 submissions by a jury of experts from the OWS.EU project. Researchers, innovators and computing centres submitted their ideas for:

Call #2: Applications of the Open Web Index

or

Call #3: Data Centre on-boarding

The projects will receive funding ranging from 50.000 Euro to 150.000 Euro for a funding period of up to 12 months. Stay tuned for more information on the winner projects and read more about selected projects from call #1.

Proceedings #wows24 are out

Organized by a committee of researchers of the OWS.EU consortium, the 1st “International Workshop on Open Web Search“ took place as a side event of #ECIR24. The hybrid workshop welcomed over 30 participants to discuss and workshop ideas for the future of #OpenWebSearch.

A Keynote by Negar Arabzadeh from the University of Waterloo on “Evaluation of Information Access Systems in the Generative Era“ kicked off the day, followed by presentations and discussions.
 Eight papers have been selected with topics like “Assembling four Open Web Search Components“, “A Mastodon Corpus to Evaluate Federated Microblog Search“ and “Efficiently Scoring the Health-relatedness of Web Pages“ to name just a few.

The proceedings are out now and can be accessed here.

The workshop was organised and the proceedings were edited by:
Sheikh Mastura Farzana, German Aerospace Center DLR
Maik Fröbe, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Gijs Hendriksen, Radboud University
Michael Granitzer, University of Passau
Djoerd Hiemstra, Radboud University
Martin Potthast, Leipzig University
Saber Zerhoudi, University of Passau

Is Google search getting worse? New resarch says yes.

Is Google search getting worse? Many people now have impression that the search engine behemoth is no longer returning as good results as it did a few years ago. If you search for computer accessories, for example, or want to find out about travel destinations, the search results are mainly links to commercial blogs or comparison portals. And it’s not just Google that is affected; the quality of search results from Bing and DuckDuckGo also seems to be suffering from a flood of affiliate portals.

Researchers from OpenWebSearch.eu project partner Webis have now investigated this topic. Janek Bevendorff, Matti Wiegmann, Martin Potthast and Benno Stein spent over a year researching how affiliate content influences search engines. To do this, they observed Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo for a year for 7,392 product review queries. According to the study, websites that compare products and link to commercial providers are largely responsible for the deterioration of web search.

Read the summary of the study “Is Google Getting Worse? A Longitudinal Investigation of SEO Spam in Search Engines” on the Webis Group website.

„Re-orienting search engine research in information science” | JASIST Special Issue

The JASIST Special Issue on „Re-orienting search engine research in information science”, co-edited by Dirk Lewandowski, Jutta Haider, Olof Sundin, has now been published. It offers lots of reading material about Internet Search and Search Engines, including the article „Impact and Development of an Open Web Index for open web search“ that many OWS.EU consortium members co-wrote are now available in the JASIST Special Issue.

Find shortcuts to the articles here:

Editorial: Re-orienting search engine research in information science
(Dirk Lewandowski, Jutta Haider, Olof Sundin)

Impact and development of an Open Web Index for open web search
(Michael Granitzer et al.)

The influence of knowledge type and source reputation on preferences for website or video search results
(Georg Pardi, Steffen Gottschling, Yvonne Kammerer)

Virtuous search: A framework for intellectual virtue in online search
(Tim Gorichanaz)

Dark sides of artificial intelligence: The dangers of automated decision-making in search engine advertising
(Carsten D. Schultz, Christian Koch, Rainer Olbrich)

Is googling risky? A study on risk perception and experiences of adverse consequences in web search
(Helena Häußler, Sebastian Schultheiß, Dirk Lewandowski)

Towards improving user awareness of search engine biases: A participatory design approach
(Monica Lestari Paramita, Maria Kasinidou, Styliani Kleanthous, Paolo Rosso, Tsvi Kuflik, Frank Hopfgartner)

Making the invisible visible: Critical discourse analysis as a tool for search engine research
(Renee Morrison)

The elusive search engine: How search engine use is reflected in survey reports
(Cecilia Andersson, Olof Sundin)

Shaping information and knowledge on climate change technologies: A cross-country qualitative analysis of carbon capture and storage results on Google search
(Jussara Rowland, Sergi López-Asensio, Ataberk Bagci, Ana Delicado, Ana Prades)

“Join the drive for a new open European infrastructure for web search” I CORDIS

The Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS) is the European Commission’s primary source of results from the projects funded by the EU’s framework programmes for research and innovation, from FP1 to Horizon Europe.

OWS.EU – as Horizon Europe project – is currently calling on third-parties to contribute innovations and infrastructure to help further develop the Open Web Index. The Calls have been published on the CORDIS website and they are closing on April 4th 17 CET:

https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/449996-join-the-drive-for-a-new-open-european-infrastructure-for-web-search?WT.mc_id=exp

“People to Watch: Dieter Kranzlmüller” I HPCwire

“The OpenWebSearch.eu project and the Open Search Foundation — both founded and based in Europe — come from a background of open source, open data, open access, and open science. These values have always resonated with my academic career, but of course also with LRZ as an institution“, says Dieter Kranzlmüller – Chair of the Board of Directors, Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ) – in a recent interview on HPCwire. Being named a “person to watch in 2024“ by the renowned computer-centred news platform, he was asked to share about LRZ‘s role in the OpenWebSearch.eu project. As one of the 14 consortium partners LRZ plays a key role in providing a stable infrastructure as one of Germany‘s top notch data centres.

Read more about LRZ‘s European scope in the full interview:
https://www.hpcwire.com/people-to-watch-2024-dieter-kranzlmuller/

 

„It takes plenty of little Davids“ I Agoratalk

The OpenWebSearch.eu project was mentioned in a recent Agoratalk podcast episode featuring Christine Plote – Chairwoman at the Open Search Foundation which is one of the fourteen OWS.EU consortium entities.

The title of the episode was “Ethics in the digital space. Alternatives instead of regulation on the net”. Together with podcast hosts Daniel Höche and Olivier Blanchard, Christine discussed the current digital landscape including ethical and societal challenges. The conversation also dove into the rather monopolistic search engine market that capitalizes on private data and shapes filter bubbles with huge, yet often invisible societal consequences.

Christine Plote shared insights on the motivation behind OWS.EU, explaining why it takes many “small Davids“ to build true alternatives to the established commerce-driven web search giants.

To listen to the full interview (in German language) click on the link below:

#ossym24 – Call for papers for 6th International Symposium on Open Search

6th International Symposium on Open Search #ossym24: Call for papers and demos is open until 23 March

In October 2024, the Open Search community will gather at Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ) in Garching near Munich for the 6th International Open Search Symposium. Papers on research and best practice projects can be submitted until 22 March 2024. For the sixth time, #ossym will provide a forum to discuss and further develop ideas and concepts of open internet search.

Organized by ows.eu project partners Open Search Foundation and hosted at LRZ, the International Open Search Symposium will  take place as a hybrid conference from 9 to 11 October 2024.

The call for papers and demos is aimed at a wide range of experts – invited are, among others, researchers and speakers from research and informatics, data centres, libraries, technology companies, politics, education as well as legal, ethical and societal thought leaders.

Read more

New Calls for Third-party Proposals and new Funding Round to be Launched in February 2024

OpenWebSearch.eu to launch open calls #2 and #3 soon, offering funding and onboarding to third-parties

After Call #1 in March 2023 and the resulting successful onboarding of six third-party partners in November 2023, the OpenWebSearch.EU will call for proposals again in February: Calls #2 and #3 will invite researchers, innovators and data centres to submit their applications to participate in the Open Web Search mission and receive funding for their project ideas. The calls will launch in February, applications will be accepted until April 2024.

ows.eu Call #2:
Applications of an Open Web Index

Call #2 will particularly ask for proposals for applications of the Open Web Index. The Open WebSearch.eu project will provide access to pre-processed and indexed data in the terabyte range. Also it will deliver continuous, daily updates until the end of the project. Successful applicants should use and exploit the data provided in innovative applications scenarios or research topics.

Under this call, applicants will be able to apply for funding of between EUR 50,000.00 and EUR 100,000.00 for a funding period of up to 12 months.

ows.eu Call #3:
Onboarding of Data Centres

Call #3 will address computing and data centers to join the OpenWebSearch.eu network of infrastructure organisations and hosting parts of the OWSAI infrastructure. The ows.eu consortium aims to on-board data centers as a proof-of-concept for the developed technology and engage in discussions on creating a sustainable future infrastructure. Called will be universities, public infrastructure providers, data centres, companies (e.g., cloud providers) or research teams with a well established infrastructure. Applicants should be capable of providing a significant extension to the current OpenWebSearch.eu data and compute infrastructure, and engaging in relevant infrastructure-oriented R&D activities.

Under call#3, applicants can request funding between 100.000,00 and 150.000,00 EUR for a funding period of up to 12 months. Major cost categories can include infrastructure costs, other costs and human resources.

 

More information on the calls and the call application packages will be launched in February 2024 on the third-party call landingpage.

The open calls are part of the OpenWebSearch.eu community programme, aiming to integrating new third-party project teams into the OpenWebSearch.eu landscape and future activities for sustainable Research and Development. Therefore, the candidate third-party projects should probe the closely related topics addressed in the project and should aim at widening and enriching the existing R&D activities as well as suggesting new ones which are complementary to the project goals and aims. Ideally, the project results should be integrated with the OpenWebSearch.eu infrastructure.