OpenCorporates

OpenCorporates

URL	opencorporates.com
Content license	Open Database Licence
Created by	Chris Taggart, Rob McKinnon and community
Launched	20 December 2010; 10 months ago (2010-12-20)

OpenCorporates is a website which shares data on corporate entities as open data under the share-alike attribution Open Database Licence.^[1] It was created by Chris Taggart and Rob McKinnon^[2] and launched on 20 December 2010.^[2][3][4] It has the aims of creating a URL with such data for every corporate entity in the world,^[1] importing government data relating to companies and matching it to specific companies.^[1]

The site also shows groups of companies which are legally part of the same conglomerate.^[5] Basic company information is available as XML or JSON.^[1]

Recognition

The site was an award winner in the OpenDataChallenge^[6], whose judging panel included web founder Tim Berners-Lee and Laura Creighton, who said:

This is an incredibly powerful and useful app. It combines information collected by scraping the web with Open Data from government bodies, with a new feature for crowdsourcing. It makes accessing government information about companies trivial. This tool is invaluable for those who want to find out more about what it is that corporations are doing. It is a remarkable step forward for transparency and accountability. I could play with this thing for days.^[6]

In launching the competition, Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission said of the site:

This is the kind of resource the (Digital) Single Market needs and it is encouraging to see that it is being built.^[7]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d} "About OpenCorporates". Open Corporates. http://opencorporates.com/info/about. Retrieved 2 July 2011. 
2. ^ ^{a b} "Press Release: OpenCorporates launches". WordPress.com. http://opencorporates.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/press-release-opencorporates-launches/. Retrieved 2 July 2011. 
3. ^ Quilty-Harper, Conrad (December 20, 2011). "Armchair auditors, sit up: OpenCorporates connects company information to Government spending". The Daily Telegraph. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/conradquiltyharper/100069040/armchair-auditors-sit-up-opencorporates-connects-company-information-to-government-spending/. Retrieved November 11, 2011. "Armchair auditors will be sitting forward today for the launch of OpenCorporates, a website that connects basic information about companies to the money they receive from the Government." 
4. ^ Taggart, Chris (December 20, 2011). "OpenCorporates: why we're crying out for this database of companies". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/dec/20/open-corporates-chris-taggart. Retrieved November 11, 2011. 
5. ^ "Introducing CorporateGroupings: where fuzzy concepts meet legal entities". OpenCorporates. http://opencorporates.wordpress.com/2011/06/01/introducing-corporategroupings-where-fuzzy-concepts-meet-legal-entities/. Retrieved 2 July 2011. 
6. ^ ^{a b} "Open Data Challenge winners". http://opendatachallenge.org/#winners. Retrieved 2 July 2011. 
7. ^ Kroes, Neelie. "Getting out the Data". Europa. http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/neelie-kroes/getting-out-the-data/. Retrieved 2 July 2011. 

External links

• OpenCorporates