Aligning internet search with fundamental rights and privacy protection:
PriDI promotes data protection in internet search

Search engines as a risk to privacy

The business models of search engines are based on the targeted marketing of user data from searchers, e.g. for personalised online advertising. User data is the “digital currency” of the 21st century and therefore consitutes an important source of revenue for online platforms.

The collection of user data makes people very predictable for advertisers. This makes them susceptible to manipulation, for example through online advertising that is tailored to their individual browsing behaviour, interests and circumstances.

Monopolisation of the search engine market

The global search engine market is currently dominated by just four providers, first and foremost by Google with a market share of 80 to 90 per cent. These providers (in addition to Google, these are Bing, Yandex and Baidu) have their own so-called web indexes. A web index is a kind of table of contents for the World Wide Web and as such makes up the core of any search engine. It is very difficult for new search engines to compete with the established ones.

Market liberalisation and digital sovereignty through an independent open web index

An open web index as an alternative to the closed, non-transparent systems of the large platforms will provide a large number of (new) search engines with a basis for their services. Scientists and entrepreneurs will also be able to use it for research and innovation, for example in the field of artificial intelligence. This opening up of the search engine market creates diversity and freedom of choice when searching the internet, thereby strengthening the informational self-determination of citizens.

Overall, such an open web index fosters freedom of information. It would be an important step towards digital sovereignty.

Legal and business informatics expertise for an open search infrastructure

In order for this new open search infrastructure to be fully effective, its design must be in line with fundamental rights.

Researchers from the Open Search Foundation and the University of Kassel will support the ongoing activities of the European “Open Search Initiative” to develop an open search infrastructure with legal and business informatics expertise and carry out a technology and data protection impact assessment for the area of open internet search. The aim of the project is to support the design of the emerging open web index and the associated search engines by answering legal questions. The project plan also includes requirement and design models, such as guidelines for companies on how they can use the open web index in compliance with fundamental rights.

Questions need to be answered, for example, in the context of the “right to de-index”. The impact and application of European legal acts such as the Digital Services Act, Digital Markets Act and AI Act on an open search infrastructure must also be analysed. Furthermore, data governance issues also play an important role. The aim is to align the design of an open search infrastructure with the fundamental rights and principles that the European Commission has also declared to be the benchmark of the “Digital Decade“.

The project is intended to identify the fundamental-rights and rights requirements for an open web index and the services based upon it and to make them available to the designers and developers of the open web index in a comprehensible manner.