The #FreeWebSearch Charter: 10 principles for public-interest web search
23. September 2025
Online talk on the occasion of #FreeWebSearch Day
On 29 September, the #FreeWebSearch Charter will be launched: a comprehensive call to action to reclaim web search as a public good. Initiated by the Open Search Foundation and developed with experts from civil society, academia and technology, the charter sets out ten concrete principles for democratic, transparent and diverse web search.
Christine Plote, founding member of the Open Search Foundation and lead of its ethics working group, will present the charter’s goals and development process, explain its ten core principles and share insights into the concrete measures outlined in the accompanying document. How can we enforce algorithm transparency? What alternative business models are possible beyond surveillance advertising? And how can international coordination for binding standards be organised?
Afterwards, there will be time for questions and joint discussions about the charter: Which of the proposed measures promise quick wins? Where are the biggest hurdles to implementation? What concrete steps can we take as a community to make the vision of a web search oriented towards the public interest a reality?
Speaker
Christine Plote is co-founder of the Open Search Foundation e. V. (OSF) and volunteers as head of the OSF’s ‘Ethics and Society’ expert group. Previously, she served on the OSF board for several years and was responsible for overall and project communications for the OSF as well as the #EthicsInSearch project. As a communications consultant specialising in science communication, she has been working freelance in Starnberg near Munich for many years.
Contact us
In case of questions, please contact Ursula Gmelch from Open Search Foundation under community@openwebsearch.eu
Info
