Maintenance of datasets

How much effort should be put into maintaining datasets?

In principle, everyone gets to decide how they maintain public datasets. Almost all public datasets come with a disclaimer that reads roughly as follows: 'We have done our best to avoid errors, but use is at your own risk'. There is no general obligation to maintain datasets. Once you get into a contractual relationship, however, an obligation may arise. If you issue a guarantee for a dataset you sell, you have to be able to live up to it. A paying customer is unlikely to be satisfied with a disclaimer that passes off all responsibility for errors in the dataset and is thus likely to demand some form of quality assurance.

Once the Directive 2019/770 (the Digital Content Directive) is implemented, a trader of datasets will have to comply with conformity requirements similar to those that already apply to physical products. For example, the digital product must comply with the product description and must be fit for purpose. This will strengthen the position of consumers, but this Directive does not apply to B2B relations.