Beall publishes his criteria for including a journal or publisher on the list. It does not seem to be based on geography or open access, as such, but on the business and ethical practices of the journal.  

See the attached criteria. The present a good list of what NOT to do when starting a scholarly journal.

Interesting and very relevant question. Beall's list has been criticized (and mostly rightly so, I think) for a variety of shortcomings, an important one of which is its inherent bias towards toll-access publishing at the expense of open access (going against librarians' ethics in quite a few respects). The bias towards well-established companies in developed nations has, to my knowledge, not been covered as yet. I found the attached piece (url) helpful for my understanding of the pitfalls of using the list.

http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2015/05/11/should-we-retire-the-term-predatory-publishing/

I think criticisms of Beall's list miss the point.  The Open Access movement can make it's own case for Open Access in its Green or Gold form.  What is most definitely right about Beall's list is it draws attention to the Mad, Bad and Criminal world of Predatory Publishing which aims to exploit the ignorance of new researchers / academics. 

I dont think Beall's list is discriminatory, the criteria for including a journal or publisher in the list is published, however it can be assume that journals from developing countries dont have the resourses to exclude them fro the list.

This very interesting question is not so easy to answer, and need therefore an entire Study. Therefore, I will briefly try to show just my point of view. To begin with... Mr.Jeffrey Beall says

(on his website: http://scholarlyoa.com/about/):

I work as a librarian at Auraria Library, University of Colorado Denver, in Denver, Colorado. An academic librarian for over 24 years, I have published extensively in the areas of metadata, full-text searching, and information retrieval. etz. ...

What is important here to see is: metadata, full-text searching, information retrieval.

Today more then 70% of all research Worldwide and studies take place over Google. How did it happen? About 5-7 Years ago Google AdWords was at the end.

The whole concept was at the end. And "mainly" therefore because of too much "undeclared" junk was on websites worldwide (and also because of other important reasons which I can not explain here). So, it had to be invented a "new" standard for VERIFIED web-openaccess information. First, Google has made a deal with Wikipedia. Secondly, then almost all today relevant Libraries of our civilization have been involved in the development of that new common standard (The libraries have retained their internal standards and use them internally).

The Linked Data Concept was born (W3C SWEO Community, Google, Wikipedija, DBpedija, Freebase, Open Calais, Geo Names and many, many others).

http://www.w3.org/wiki/SweoIG/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/LinkingOpenData

Despite the negative connotation, I realy think today we need that (s...), and our future and the successful management of our societies depends of "relative-transparent" BigData management and that new, "long-term" standards.

Finally (because I have to keep working;) Roughly speaking: each study which is not on Wikipedia and DBPedia, and others... does not exist (70%) in practice!

Thus, Beall’s List could serve to educate us all, that we have to publish, everything also paralell on Wikipedia, DBPedia ... (what scientifically can be very useful!)

All this is just only my subjective opinion, which might be quite wrong!

I'd love to hear good contra arguments (also on my blog, unfortunately only in German language): wegawave.info

All the Best,

G.P.

The criteria to include OA & publishers on the list is here:

https://scholarlyoa.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/criteria-2015.pdf

Definitively, OA & publishers from developed countries have more popularity for obvious reasons (bigger Internet access, prestige, etc.), though it does not mean that it makes them better than OA & publishers of developing countries. That;s the challenge for developing countries OA & publishers: to demonstrate their practice fit the standards. As much as the digital divide is reduced in the so called Third World, the situation will pair OA & publishers from developing countries to those of developed ones.

Is there a broader issue in terms of the availability of "credible" publishing outlets for the volume of academic research output?  I would suggest that the volume of high quality academic research on a range of issues and a range of countries has increased dramatically over the last twenty or so years.  Has the number of "credible" publication outlets kept pace?

A top journal might be published quarterly.  Let's say it's publishes 10 articles per issue, that's 40 articles a year.  The number of high quality submissions must have increased 

To answer Your question Mr. Robinson, I would first ask my self the following questions:

a. Are scientists (worldwide) participating (in the meantime) otherwise (in a different way) scientific publications, and how?

b. Are the classic type of publication no longer "sufficient" enough?

c. Are in the (Globaly) Research increasingly bypassed procedures?

d. Are the budgets for the new way of publishing today still high enough?

e. What systems of budget procurement are applied for?

f. Are in the institutes enough staff for the new way of publishing today?

This modest questions I ask myself from time to time. Mainly therefore beacorse, just in my personal discussions with decision makers from politics, business and science, I'm coming (unfortunately) more and more often to (my humble) conclusion that there are an increasing number of illiterates in these three groups. They do not even understand the far-reaching Implications which will meet our civilization because of the ignorance of science.

The fundamental question is not about our experience, (this question is not so relevant) but: does science "TODAY" need a NEW - FREE International Standardized Work Platform? Want politics such NEW system? And above all, want they to pay for it, and for that endure criticism?

Much cheaper (and especially easier) it is spending millions for barbed wire, to prevent exchange of people and ideas :(

Best Regards,

Goran Pavlov

Lists on Beall's database are dynamic, some of journals are indexed in SCOPUS or ISI. I wonder the criterion of measurement to select journals or publishers to his list?

Beall's list was removed from the web in January 2017 along with its publisher's blog Scholarly Open Access, without any formal explanation.  This "black list" was initially useful in stimulating debate around allegedly predatory journals affecting the Open Access publishing model, but ignored similar issues affecting traditional print journal. 

From the outset, I found the list to be unscientific and biased in its application. It became accepted as an "easy" way for some institutions to screen curriculum vitae, but "easy" often meant "lazy"... typically no effort made to check the actual work. Similarly, some document databases were misrepresented in this process, not taking into account stages of technical or business development, linguistic and cultural differences, or even respect for good faith. I am encouraged to see the focus now shifting more toward a "white list" - the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

People interested in an update on predatory journals, following the cessation of Beall's List updates and it's removal, might like to refer to an article in today's Times Higher Education (6 April 2017, pp. 42 & 43), reporting work by Larissa Shamseer and David Moher (link below but access may be restricted to subscribers).

Their study resulted in a list of 13 warning signs:

1. The scope of interest includes non-biomedical subjects alongside biomedical topics, or multiple, wide-ranging and unrelated fields of study are combined

2. The website contains spelling and grammar errors

3, Images are distorted/fuzzy, intended to look like something they are not, or are unauthorised

4.The home page language targets authors rather than readers

5, The Index Copernicus Value is promoted on the website

6.  Description of the manuscript handling process is lacking

7.   Manuscripts are requested to be submitted via email

8.   Rapid publication is promised

9.   There is no retraction policy

10.   Information on whether and how journal content will be digitally preserved Is absent

11. The article processing/publication charge is very low (eg,

But why cant the research communities/institutions develop a bias-free list that could serve as a working template that would be more acceptable since 2017 that Beall's list was discontinued?