Ethics in Search – A webinar about ethical aspects of web search and search engines

The discussions around ethics in the healthcare industry go back a long way. In the field of AI, ethical aspects have been hotly debated in recent months. However, when it comes to internet search, there is little public discussion, even though there are concrete aspects that are now acute and have a direct impact on our daily information seeking behaviour, on what we get to see on the web – or not.

Reason enough to look at the ethics of internet search and highlight concrete examples.

In this webinar, Christine Plote and Jasmin Tietgen from the Open Search Foundation e.V. will introduce the basic facts of web search and explain how we as individuals, but also as a society, depend on a few market players today.

Using concrete examples, they will show how web search can bring and cause ethical problems – not always intentionally, but often as a thoughtless consequence. They will take us behind the scenes of web search and show how a European web index with openness and transparency can offer a new perspective for search engines and other services such as generative AI and thus, based on humanistic values, positively influence the European economy and society.

They will also give tips what we – as individuals – can already do today to search more safely and ethically.