PRESS RELEASE, January 13, 2010
Over 2 million Netherlands companies added to OpenCorporates thanks to openkvk.nl
In a groundbreaking collaboration between OpenCorporates.com, the Open Database of the Corporate World, and openkvk.nl, the website which makes the Dutch Chamber of Commerce (Kamer van Koophandel, KvK) easy to query, over 2,100,000 Netherlands companies have been added to OpenCorporates, making the Netherlands the third EU country with all its companies incorporated into this open data resource.
By adding the names and KvK numbers to OpenCorporates, openkvk.nl brings a step closer the goal of having a URL for every company in the world, giving the open data community an invaluable resource for matching data to companies. This means that through tools such as Google Refine, whole datasets referring to company names can be matched to the actual companies (see screencast). As the corporate world becomes more global, it is important that it’s possible to find and track companies not just for one country, but all of them.
While all 2,188,873 Dutch companies now have an entry, some of the basic information available for other countries – the date of incorporation, for example, and the type of company – is not available, as KvK only makes this available for a fee, putting Netherlands citizens at a disadvantage compared to most other EU countries.
It is hope that in the future the KvK will open up all its information as open data, as it is surely in the public interest that this information be made easily accessible, comparable, and sharable.
Notes to Editors
OpenCorporates was launched on 20 December 2010, with the goal of opening up corporate information around the world. The OpenCorporates database and services being made available under the share-alike attribution Open Database License (ODbL). This license permits others to share, create, and adapt the OpenCorporates database under the same license, even commercially, bringing much this data out into the public realm for the first time.
Chris Taggart, one of the founders of OpenCorporates, said, “The public, even the government, knows very little about companies, and the data they do have isn’t brought together in one place. OpenCorporates changes all that and allows the public, the government and developers to get a view of the corporate world previously only available to those large companies who could afford to subscribe to expensive proprietary databases.”
Stefan de Konink, the founder of openkvk.nl, said, “The international effort of merging company records will allow developers and users all over the world to integrate their billing systems to a single source of information regarding companies. Our minor contribution does not complete OpenCorporates globally, but takes it one step closer to completion.”
Contact: Chris Taggart at info@opencorporates.com, http://twitter.com/OpenCorporates or Stefan de Konink at stefan@konink.de
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That is nice to hear. Have there been contacts with people who are looking at this kind of data for Belgium, as there is a similar service available (KBO).
I’m currently writing a wrapper for that query-service and a Google Refine reconciliation service, but maybe it is more efficient to push for opening up this data and contributing to OpenCorporates?
Haven’t been in contact with anybody in Belgium yet, so great to hear from you. If we could get this data open would be great. Stefan said there was a problem with Belgian law with making the addresses public. Are you familiar with that? Please feel free to email me at info at opencorporates dot com & maybe we can work out the best way of achieving the opening up.