Take a few minutes to surf the internet, and you will know how information evolves. On an Internet store, the cost of shoes changes overnight. Airline tickets exhibit upward and downward movements in relation to demand. Search results are dynamic and guided by algorithms that do not sleep.
This movement is being powered by an enormous amount of data. It has never been so important to businesses. Retailers monitor the price of rivals. Cyber-security personnel monitor any suspicious activity on the internet. Travel companies research the booking patterns on dozens of platforms. However, it is one thing to locate that information on millions of websites. *Another is the need to collect it regularly. *
That battle has indirectly formed a new tier of the technology economy. Businesses use web resources to collect large amounts of publicly available data, and the tools and infrastructure to do so have been developed by companies. Oxylabs is one of those companies, a Lithuanian company, which acts mostly behind the scenes, but becomes increasingly significant in the global data ecosystem.
Oxylabs was founded in Vilnius in 2015. The Baltic technology scene was still relatively small at the time compared to other European centers. However, the area had now begun to attract a steady stream of internet infrastructure businesses — companies not necessarily concerned with the apps perceived by end users.
Oxylabs joined this market with proxy networks. Simply, proxies enable internet requests to go through other IP addresses. Rather than thousands of requests generated by a single computer or location, the activity appears to be spread across numerous points worldwide.
That could be taken to be a technical detail, but it is a practical issue. Many companies require publicly accessible data from the Internet for research, analytics, or market monitoring. When all of those requests are sent to the same location, the websites tend to block them automatically. The Proxy networks will separate the traffic to ensure that the information is collected without saturating a server.
Over the next few years, Oxylabs has developed that infrastructure geometrically. The company reports having over 177 million IP addresses across more than 230 countries and territories. As a business in the global market, such a level of geographical coverage is important. Websites can display different content depending on the area a user appears to be browsing.
Suppose a retailer is interested in monitoring how rival businesses price their products in other markets. Or a tour operator surveying the prices of hotels in more than one area. Accessing websites across various digital platforms enables businesses to get a glimpse of how these markets appear to local people.
The demand for this technology has grown in tandem with digital commerce. As more financial transactions go online, companies have turned to the web to access real-time information.
Some businesses keep track of thousands of products simultaneously. Others can analyze search results or social media trends. The machine-learning models can also be trained using large datasets collected from websites in research settings.
Such a move toward data-driven decision-making has propelled companies such as Oxylabs into the technology spotlight even further. Although the average internet user has surely never heard of the firm, its infrastructure supports systems used in industries such as e-commerce and cybersecurity.
Oxylabs has also developed automated tools to extract structured information from websites, making the process easier. These tools, also known as scraping APIs, handle much of the technical work of data collection and organization. Companies do not need to write complicated scripts; instead, they can connect to existing, ready-made systems to access the information they need.
Oxylabs has also been experimenting with artificial intelligence to further streamline the process in the recent past. In 2024, the company launched an AI-based assistant that enables users to describe the data they are interested in in plain language. It is then processed by the system to produce the technical workflow needed to collect it. The concept is a wider trend in the technological world. Automation is becoming more common, with highly specialized engineering tools being automated out of existence.
Meanwhile, an increase in the volume of massive web data has brought ethical issues into sharper focus. Organizations in the industry require their technology to collect publicly available information. Many are also promoting guidelines on responsible data practices.
Oxylabs has participated in that discussion through several initiatives. One program, Project 4b, offers free access to technology for researchers and investigative journalists. Data analysis via the internet has been used by investigations by groups like Bellingcat and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which have monitored everything from disinformation groups to worldwide financial links.
The company has also been involved in research projects with academic institutions on web data and digital transparency. Universities such as Stanford University and the University of Edinburgh have studied the possibility of using large datasets from the internet to enable researchers to gain clearer insight into online ecosystems.
At Oxylabs, the emphasis is mostly on infrastructure construction and maintenance. Headed by Chairman of the Board, Julius Cerniauskas, and the new CEO Vytautas Savickas, the company has evolved into a large technology corporation with hundreds of specialists under his leadership, growing from a small proxy provider into a proxy provider for a global technology enterprise.
Even with such expansion, the company continues to play in the background. Its products are tools for other businesses, not consumer-facing platforms.
However, that silent job could be even more significant as the digital economy becomes increasingly reliant on digital information. The analysts believe demand for web intelligence tools will increase as firms seek to better interpret online markets.
In most respects, the companies developing this infrastructure are indeed the developers and builders of the pipelines of modern internet systems that transmit the raw information upon which businesses rely to make their decisions.
Oxylabs, based in Vilnius, is one company contributing to this layer of the digital economy. Most users may never encounter their technology directly. However, the information it provides flows through the internet and is central to how businesses operate today.
