EWDCI 2023 Public Comment Period Announcement

March 17, 2023

The Ethical Web Data Collection Initiative (EWDCI) has announced the creation of a Public Comment Period for review of its recently announced Principles 1.0 Document. From March 17th through April 28th, the organization will be accepting stakeholder comments on the following document: EWCI Principles 1.0

The Ethical Web Data Collection Initiative (EWDCI) is an industry-led and member-driven consortium of web data collection business leaders focused on strengthening public trust, promoting ethical guidelines, and helping businesses make informed data collection choices.

EWDCI Principles 1.0 were built by companies in the web data collection industry. The goal is to agree on industry standards collectively. Building consumer confidence, commercial innovation, and community safety are the ultimate goals of the Initiative. 

Version 1.0 was released on February 28th, 2023, outlining commitments made by EWDCI founders around web data collection practices. Web data collection includes data that is aggregated and can come from various sources, including open web and mobile applications.

By soliciting public feedback as EWDCI members move towards the creation of Principles Version 2.0, the group hopes to generate interest from stakeholders throughout the community of people who rely upon helping businesses make informed data collection choices in an effort to make the public commitments promised by these Principles even stronger.

This principles document focuses on four key areas:

1. Legality
2. Ethics
3. Social Responsibility
4. Ecosystem Engagement

Commenters are free to focus their attention on one or more issue areas in their comments.

Please send comments to [email protected] by April 28th, 2023.

About EWDCI + i2Coalition

The Ethical Web Data Collection Initiative (EWDCI) seeks to foster cooperation in the web data collection and aggregation industry and leverage collective first-hand knowledge and insights to advocate for beneficial technical standards and business best practices regarding the aggregation of data. The EWDCI is dedicated to serving as the voice of the industry, collaboratively strengthening public trust in the practice of Data Aggregation, promoting ethical guidelines, and helping businesses make informed data aggregation choices.  The Internet Infrastructure Coalition (i2Coalition, i2C) is the leading voice for web hosting companies, data centers, domain registrars and registries, cloud infrastructure providers, managed services providers, and related tech. The i2C works with Internet infrastructure providers to advocate for sensible policies, design and reinforce best practices, help create industry standards, and build awareness of how the Internet works. The i2Coalition also spearheaded the creation of the VPN Trust Initiative, which determined and promoted best practices for that vital industry.