We signed on to these recommendations to the European Commission for the Digital Services Act.
The letter, coordinated by Mozilla, called for:
- Public data should be complete, comprehensive, and include historical data.
- Data must be usable, accessible and verifiable, for which multiple access methods are needed
- Permissioned access must come on fair and reasonable terms
- Platforms must not hinder independent, public interest research
- Data sharing should include a diversity of researchers
As Green Web Foundation, we acknowledge that digital platforms know more about its users than we do about them. To better hold these companies to account, data about digital platforms must be made available for independence auditing and research.
For example, we know that companies do not disclose enough data about their environmental impact and even when they do, the data is incomplete or shared in formats that make it difficult to review. To improve transparency and strengthen citizens’ power online, we support the above recommendations to the European Commission that the Digital Services Act ensure public data is available for public interest research.
If you would like to sign or support this work, you can contact [email protected].
