The Open Web Search Book#
Authors
Michael Granitzer, University of Passau and Open Search Foundation, Germany,
Maik Fröbe, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany,
Noor Afshan Fathima, CERN, Switzerland,
Arjen P. de Vries, Radboud University, The Netherlands,
Gijs Hendriksen, Radboud University, The Netherlands,
Sebastian Heineking, Leipzig University, Germany
Quick Start#
Motivation#
The World Wide Web, a cornerstone of our digital economy, not only drives innovation but also offers a vast data source for researchers, innovators, and society. It’s particularly vital for fields like Artificial Intelligence or Web Analytics. However, despite the web’s richness, access to its information is constrained by homogenous search structures and few central gatekeepers. Especially when considering that Web search became the primary information source for nearly everybody, Web search can be considered as critical infrastructure. Therefore, it is problematic, that current Web search lacks diversity, leaving users without a true choice for choosing their unique preferences, whether those involve privacy, thematic focuses, or even political views. Like choosing their own daily newspaper, uses should be enabled to choose Web search engines according to their preferences.
Consequently, Open Web Search aims to provide a technological, ethical, legal and societal framework for (i) increasing competitiveness in the search and discovery market and (ii) to empowering innovators and researchers for tapping the Web as a resource, particularly for AI and Web Analytics.
This book aims to be a compendium for Open Web Search. We aim to
collect, describe and discuss relevant scientific discoveries, technologies and algorithms,
develop application scenarios, ideas and search paradigm for improving future search and discovery,
discuss and elobarate important societal, ethical and legal implications and constraints,
develop buisness models that go beyond advertisment for sustaining the Web infrastructure,
highlighting relevant projects, activies and events devoted to the topic of open Web search and its ecosystem.
The book is intended to be open and welcomes contributors who want to advance today’s Web search or who aim to comment on our ideas and activities .
The book is also in (an intendend) continuous perpetual beta version. So the content is subject to change (while version history will be kept alive).