40 million companies now in OpenCorporates database

The open database of the corporate world, OpenCorporates, has announced that it has passed the milestone of having 40 million companies in its database. It also noted that the fifty-second jurisdiction, Mauritius, has been added, and that it is moving from alpha to beta, though it admits it should have done that "some time ago".

OpenCorporates says it aims to have a URL on its site for every company in the world and to import government data relating to those companies. It initially started by covering three territories and a "few million companies". Among the countries on the database currently are the UK, Spain, Singapore, Panama, Poland, Barbados, Iceland, Albania, and US states from Alaska and California to Washington and Wyoming.

The data in OpenCorporates is freely reusable under the share-alike Open Database Licence (ODbL). As well as accessing the available company data through the site's web front-end, developers can use one of two APIs to access much of the information and most of the functionality of the site.

The OpenCorporates team noted that they are being recognised for their work by the establishment; they have previously worked with the UK's Companies House to help design new URIs for the site, and have worked with the EU to help develop a Business Vocabulary. Most recently they have been appointed to the advisory panel of the Financial Stability Board's work on a global legal entity identifier. "It’s a sign that these big institutions ... are beginning (and I'd stress the beginning) to embrace to concept of open data, and the dangerous effects of the existing asymmetries of access to data", said the OpenCorporates blog posting.

(djwm)