Google and research data · Elephant in the Lab

"Therefore, we need better tools for data discovery. But I do not believe that Google Dataset Discovery is the right answer. It represents a proprietary and closed system on top of our own data. This is a system that benefits massively from researchers’ labour, but where researchers will have no say in. Google is capitalizing on a movement that they have contributed nothing to. Therefore, we need an open alternative. However, at the moment it seems to me that funders, research administrators and infrastructures are content to leave it to Google. This is highly problematic, especially since we have discussed the problems of lock-in effects and other negative outcomes of proprietary infrastructure for years now...."