Oxylabs Recognized with the 2022 Baltic Sustainability Award

Gabija Birgile

2022-12-072 min read

Oxylabs, a provider of premium proxies and public web data scraping solutions, was announced a winner at the Baltic Sustainability Awards. The company was recognized for its joint pro bono project with the Communications Regulatory Authority of the Republic of Lithuania (CRA) to detect illegal content online with a unique AI-powered web scraping solution.

Out of over 240 applications and 29 outstanding sustainability innovation achievements that were selected as the finalists, Oxylabs was announced as the Impact category winner in the Social Initiatives subcategory.

For us, this award stands as proof of how important it is for businesses to provide value to individuals and societies at large. CRA raised a challenge that aims to automate illegal content detection online. As one of the market leaders in the public web data collection industry, we used our expertise and found the right solution, which, hopefully, will make the internet safer and have a long-lasting and positive impact.

Julius Černiauskas, CEO of Oxylabs

Solution for a sustainable future

The cornerstones of the Baltic Sustainability Awards evaluation criteria included impact, scalability, meaningfulness, innovation and its added value, clear and proven metrics of success and lasting impact on society or environment.

The Oxylabs-created tool automatically scans the Lithuanian IP address space to find potentially harmful images related to child sexual abuse and pornography. If found, the content is automatically forwarded to the hotline of CRA specialists for review. After two months of its use, the tool scanned around 288 000+ Lithuanian websites. After carefully investigating reported images, 19 websites were identified as violators of national or EU laws, 8 police reports were filed, and 2 pre-trial investigations have started.

The award-winning AI-powered web scraping solution helps CRA reach greater efficiency in its mission of safeguarding the Lithuanian internet space from illegal content and enables the institution to be at the forefront of the process. In addition, CRA plans to share best practices with partner institutions in foreign countries. Therefore, the solution could also have a lasting impact on societies outside Lithuania.

The partnership with CRA shows how beneficial web scraping technology can be for public institutions and a broader public. At Oxylabs, we are committed to contributing to societal missions through our dedicated pro bono initiative, "Project 4β". We are already in partnership with universities, researchers, and institutions around the world and welcome others to join. We believe that these endeavors, even small ones, can change the world for the better.

Julius Černiauskas, CEO of Oxylabs

Solving critical questions

Through "Project 4β" Oxylabs provides no-fee access to global public web data for academic institutions, researchers, NGOs, NPOs and other organizations to help them maximize their research impact and enhance their understanding of the web scraping technology with regards to the ethical, legal, and technical aspects.

Applications to enter "4β" and access automated public web data gathering solutions free of charge are accepted via contact form.

About the author

Gabija Birgile

Senior PR Manager

Gabija Birgile is a Senior PR Manager at Oxylabs. After working in a PR agency and juggling various projects for quite some time, she wanted to try a role in the tech industry. Making a positive impact with her work was always on top of her mind, so managing "Project 4β" pro bono partnerships now definitely does the job. If you have a project in mind, drop her a message at 4beta@oxylabs.io.

Learn more about Gabija Birgile

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