ACAP trial partners revealed

The taskforce behind the ACAP (Automated Content Access Protocol) search engine initiative has announced the list of publishers participating in the pilot project, which commenced on 12 January.

Nine publishers have been announced as partnering on the pilot, including Independent News & Media, Reed Elsevier and Macmillan.

The ACAP project team said it was very happy with the collaboration it was getting from the three major search engines, but said it would be premature to make a formal announcement about their involvement at this stage, adding: “We are in continuing productive discussions”.

The British Library has also joined the project as a technical partner; the library is very keen to see the scope of the ACAP project extended to the management of website harvesting for digital preservation.

The pilot project, led by a taskforce spearheaded by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and including The European Publishers Council (EPC) the International Publishers Association (IPA) and the European Newspapers Association (ENPA), is designed to prevent future clashes between search engines and publishers by creating an open-source, industry standard that will allow publishers worldwide to express usage policies in a language that the search engines can be taught to understand.

The technical work of the project is said to be beginning in earnest; more information about technical direction is expected in two months.

The list of participating publishers is as follows:

* Agence France-Presse www.afp.com
* De Persgroep www.persgroep.be
* Impresa www.impresa.pt
* Independent News & Media Plc www.inmplc.com
* John Wiley & Sons www.wiley.com
* Macmillan / Holtzbrinck www.macmillan.com
* Media 24 www.media24.com
* Reed Elsevier www.reedelsevier.com
* Sanoma Corporation www.sanoma.fi/english
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