OpenWebSearch.eu

ARTE.tv featured our project in a recent documentary on European digital dependencies:

https://openwebsearch.eu/wo-bleibt-das-europaische-google-oder-facebook-arte-tv/

🥳 A big shoutout goes to @djoerd@idf.social from our team at @Radboud_uni@mastodon.social whom you can see in the interview!

University Passau, @Radboud_uni@mastodon.social, CERN, German Aerospace Center, Leipzig University, Technische Universität Graz, IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center, CSC-IT Center for Science, A1 Slovenija d.d., Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, @osf@suma-ev.social, @LRZ_DE@mastodon.social , SUMA-EV, @nlnet@social.nlnet.nl

RE: @osf@suma-ev.social

🗣️ Call for Papers is extended for #ossym2026

Results from our Third-Party Partner project
#VERITAS are in!

Can open web data power real-time fact-checking?
The VERITAS team built a retrieval-augmented generation chatbot and Chrome extension for verifying claims online.

The idea: instead of prompting an AI model to generate answers from whatever it absorbed during training, you first retrieve relevant documents from a trusted knowledge base and then ask the model to compose its answer based on those documents.

https://openwebsearch.eu/results-veritas/

Results from our Third-Party Partner project #AKASE are in!

What if a search engine could assess the quality of arguments?

The AKASE project team built an Argumentation Knowledge Graph based on 105 million web documents that were pulled from the #OpenWebIndex. The Knowledge Graph maps how arguments across the web support, attack, and rephrase each other.
The system identifies claims and premises, detects logical fallacies, and assesses argument quality automatically.
https://openwebsearch.eu/akase-results/

Results from our Third-Party Partner project #OMMS are published!

What was it about?
Open a proprietary maps app, search for a restaurant, and you see opening hours, phone number, FAQ and photos.
Open an OpenStreetMap-based app and you see a name and a pin.

The gap is not in the map data – it's in the business information layer.

The project addressed this issue, using the #OWI to harvest structured data from websites linked to OpenStreetMap points of interest.

https://openwebsearch.eu/results-omms/

"...In an ideal scenario, the AI model is running on my machine and controlling my data. It’s a tool that helps me, conducts searches on my behalf & understands what I want to do. I’m talking about small language models rather than large language models..." – @grani@suma-ev.social in an interview w/ RESET - Digital for Good

Read more on:
📍 the state of the European #OWI
📍 benefits of a community driven solution
📍 recommendations from Michael on which search engines to try

https://shorturl.at/Xt6ms

Still stoked about our recent trip to Osaka/Japan for #SCA/HPC Asia 🇯🇵

The OWS team got to present research and results in poster sessions as well as in one on one talks at the booth plus in a showcase presentation on federated HPC Workflows for Large-Scale Web Indexing, presented by Michael Granitzer from University of Passau and Martin Golasowski from IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center.
Arigato to all who came by!

📢 Yesterday was European Data Protection Day 2026. 👉️ It's time to take action!

Using the internet has become expensive. It costs us most of our privacy – because data is the currency of the internet. Take action and switch – there are alternatives that respect your privacy. 💡You can find some good tips for switching here: https://di.day/.

Our series ‘(R)echt bekannt!?’ (in German) explains your rights when it comes to data protection: 📌 https://pridi-projekt.de/#wissen

#dataprotection #diday

📣 Call for papers & participation

One month left to hand in your works for the 3rd international Workshop on Open Web Search #wows2026

📍Happening from 29 March-2 April 2026 as a side event of ECIR2026.

👉 The workshop aims to promote & discuss ideas + approaches to open up the web search ecosystem so that small research groups + young startups can leverage the web to foster an open & diverse search market.

All details:
https://opensearchfoundation.org/events-osf/wows2026/

Japan, here we come! 🇯🇵
Meet the OpenWebSearch.eu team at #SCA/HPCAsia 2026 in Osaka from 26-29 January. Come visit us at our booth at stand S11 in the exhibition hall (third floor) and talk to our experts.
We look forward to seeing you soon! 🙌

Our OpenWebSearch.eu partner portrait series continues.
Read our short interview with @phoefer@suma-ev.social from SUMA-EV on our blog 🙌 👇
https://openwebsearch.eu/ows-eu-partner-in-focus-suma-ev/

We are working on our last newsletter issue of the year. If you haven't signed up to our mailings yet, now is a good time to do so:
https://openwebsearch.eu/newsletter/

📝 The Open Web Search Partner interview series continues...
Our 14 Partners are sharing their project insights one week at a time.

On the blog now is a recent interview with the team from Technische Universität Graz. Take a look here:
https://openwebsearch.eu/ows-eu-partner-in-focus-the-graz-university-of-technology/

#openwebsearch #partnerseries #tugraz

🤗 Today is the day! We have exciting news to share!
Curlie.org with the support of OpenWebSearch.eu generously offers the entire Curlie web directory for download – for free!
🐿️ As of today you can get your hands on the largest human-edited web directory currently out there.
A special thanks goes to our project partner Leibniz Supercomputing Centre for hosting the download.
👉 Waste no more time! Get started right here: https://curlie.org/download

#opensource #openweb #openWebIndex

#EBDVF kicks off next week!

Our team hosts the session "Reclaim the Web! Towards sovereign AI, Analytics and Search Services in Europe" on 13 Nov, 12.00-13.00 CET.

The European #OpenWebIndex can support research & business applications.
- Learn about the need for such a public Web data infrastructure
- We will present #OWI use cases
- A strategic outlook on further usage possibilities, incl. future governance model structure & a financial model for the Open Search ecosystem will be given

🎈 Save the Date for #EuropeanBigDataValueForum, 12-14 Nov in Kopenhagen

European Big Data Value Forum brings the European data-driven AI research + innovation community together to share knowledge, collaborate & celebrate achievements.

Among the speakers from our team:
🗣️ Stephan Hachinger from @LRZ_DE
🗣️ 🗣️ Jan Martinovič and Katerina Slaninova from IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center
🗣️ Stefan Voigt from @osf@suma-ev.social 🗣️
Per Öster from CSC - IT Center for Science

☕ Swing by our booth ;)