Update from OWS.EU partner projects: Part 3
Building an Open Web Index does not only include technical challenges, but also legal and societal ones. To extend our R&D activities around Open Web Search, we initiated the OWS.EU Community Programme. In our first Third-party call we asked for contributions on legally compliant data gathering and identifying legal or economic aspects that enable or block the development and maintenance of an Open Web Index. The call opened in March 2023 and ended with the onboarding of six new partner projects in November 2023. This blogpost includes updates from two projects that address legal challenges of providing an Open Web Index: ALMASTIC and LOREN.
ALMASTIC: Legal Evaluation of Technical Aspects of the Open Web Index
The ALMASTIC project aims to legally secure the Open Web Index by subjecting its technical aspects to legal evaluation. Its goal is to identify obstacles and mitigate legal risks in the process of successful global dissemination.
After helping to draft the first version of the Open Web Index License (OWIL 1), a comprehensive analysis of relevant legislation, case law and applicable guidelines and academic literature has been performed, forming a solid basis for the future legal compliance of OpenWebSearch.EU. The examination focused on five key areas:
- liability for third-party content,
- copyright,
- data protection,
- cybersecurity, and
- data governance.
The team around Prof. Kai Erenli from the University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna will use the remaining time of the project to finalise their analysis while keeping in mind that a final assessment is not always possible, as the legal situation in many relevant areas is currently highly dynamic and relevant legal acts have yet to be finalised or case laws identified.
More information about the ALMASTIC project.
LOREN: Legal Open European Web Index
The LOREN project seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of the legal constraints and requirements for building and operating an Open Web Index. The project will specifically look into the legal implications of crawling, data storage and sharing as well as provide recommendations for building and operating an Open Web Index that complies with the European laws and regulations.
The team around the two lawyers Paul C. Johannes and Dr. Maxi Nebel compiled and analysed the laws and norms that are relevant to building and maintaining of an Open Web Index. Results are currently compiled into a legal opinion with actionable advice regarding crawling, searching, indexing, sharing of index and disclosure of data for scientific purposes.
Additionally, the LOREN team started to work on the implications of the right to de-referencing. Furthermore they are analysing existing open source and open data licenses in regard to the suitability for usage in an Open Web Index. In the next months the team will concentrate on providing their legal opinion with advice concerning selection and/or adaptation of open data licenses for the Open Web Index. In order to present a workable license the LOREN team has worked together with other projects from call #1 of the OWS.Eu Community Programme.
