Introduction

Introduction#

The EU funded project OpenWebSearch.EU (Grant Agreemenbt No. 101070014) became the starting point for the joint technological development of an European-driven, Open Web Search initiative. The project aims to be a first step for moving from the current search engine oligopoly to a true search engine market. We think that is necessary to increase competitiveness amongst search services / search engines and to ease tapping the web as resources, particularly for researchers and innovators.

An open search engine ecosystems gives users a true choice for selecting search engines fitting their preferences, thus increasing trust and diversity. Opening the search engine market is only partially rooted in new technology development. It also requires to open up the ecosystem around single web search engines, such that web masters and content owners gain freedom of choice rather than being constrained by one ecosystem, especially when it comes to controlling the usage of their web content.

In this book we are going to outline the project idea in more detail, along with introducing general aspects of an open web search ecosystems. We also report on ongoing activities and describe how to use our tools, services and data. In addition, we would like to invite the community to contribute to the book and also join the Open Web Search Community.

We do not intend to repeat administrative information or announcements in this book. Details therefore can be found at the OpenWebSearch.EU project homepage