EU-funded researchers are reclaiming Europe’s place in the Internet world by developing the necessary tools to support different types of research in Europe.
Author Jack McGowan
Megi Sharikadze, who is a research manager at the Leibniz Supercomputing Center in Munich, Germany, first realized the importance of having local researchers when she was trying to find a local post office.
For several years, Google maps was directing him to a post office far away from home. But when he decided to do some more research, he found the closest post office branch to his home by searching directly on the German post office website.
Sharikadze said: “It made me realize that there should be a special search engine that shows the details of local architecture.
He is now part of an EU-funded research project called OpenWebSearch.EU that is working to make European web searches more accessible.
The project evolved from a ground-breaking project in Germany that became a European project to gather 14 well-known research and computer facilities.
The idea behind the launch of this project is to change the current situation, where non-European digital platforms dominate internet searches, creating a one-sided environment that forces many users – including scientists, companies and the media – to optimize the content of those platforms. .
“We want to empower communities to easily browse and find the parts of the Internet that are relevant to them,” said Michael Granitzer, professor of data science at the University of Passau, Germany, and co-founder of OpenWebSearch.EU. .
One size does not fit all
Search engines have become an integral part of everyday life over the past three decades. The problem is that the ability to search for information on the Internet is almost completely controlled by one company – Google. So much so that “to google” has become a common verb in English – and many other languages.
As of August 2024, Google is the most used search engine in the world, with a global market share of 90.5%. In 2024, Google’s authority was ruled unlawful in a case brought by the US Justice Department, while the EU Supreme Court also fined it for abuse of power.
Some European search engines exist, but they use search results from American companies such as Google and Bing.
The digital world is dominated by IT companies based in the USA. This means that on top of making more money, they also collect more information and data about their users.
The EU’s response is the Digital Markets Act, which came into force in March this year, with the aim of preventing these large companies from using unfair means to maintain their advantage in the digital market. This means that technology startups, such as search engine developers, will be able to compete without unfair conditions that hinder their growth.
Build it and they will come
The researchers at OpenWebSearch.EU want to create the basis of the European Open Web Index (OWI) that developers can use to create a compatible search engine. This will allow Europeans to enter the digital market with their products, giving the digital market in Europe the opportunity to grow.
OWI is a technology that contains a set of data in a structured format, which can be used by search engines that send information to the end user.
One of the reasons for building a European OWI is that the EU has different data protection laws to the US, where Google is based. Having an OWI also means having an infrastructure that complies with European laws and regulations. In addition, Europe is multilingual and OWI aims to support multiple languages.
“Web crawling is a much different legal matter in Europe than it is in the US,” Granitzer said.
The rise of Europe
The OpenWebSearch.EU group includes 14 leading European search engines. He started work in 2022 with an investigation that will take place until August 2025.
The Leibniz Supercomputing Center, where Sharikadze works, is a partner. Other collaborators include CERN – the home of the original license for WWW servers – and the Open Search Foundation, which Granitzer said created the idea for the project.
The foundation, located in Starnberg near Munich, is committed to making the internet open and transparent in an effort to strengthen European dominance in the digital market.
From niche to mainstream
Granitzer said that anyone should be able to use OWI to create any type of search engine they want. For example, one centered around Pokemon, or another specifically for children.
Creating a search engine requires access to things that most people don’t have. The partners believe that creating an index using European infrastructure will lower the barrier to entry for Europeans hoping to develop new search engines.
There are three cases that are being used to create a search engine with OWI, including one that will work as a restaurant in Slovenia and a search engine that combines Internet data with geoscience data, which Granitzer said would be useful for environmental scientists.
“By allowing different types of search engines to be created on the Internet, we hope to address the current trends in the digital market and therefore create more access to information,” said Granitzer.
The research in this article was supported by the EU’s Horizon Programme. The views of the respondents do not reflect those of the European Commission. This article was originally published in In the front Journal of EU Research and Innovation.
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