diff --git a/wis2box_api/plugins/process/publish_dataset.py b/wis2box_api/plugins/process/publish_dataset.py
index 2a902ce..c774682 100644
--- a/wis2box_api/plugins/process/publish_dataset.py
+++ b/wis2box_api/plugins/process/publish_dataset.py
@@ -199,6 +199,8 @@ def execute(self, data):
         try:
             # create the message out of the metadata
             msg = metadata
+            # dump the message to a string and sanitize html
+            msg = json.dumps(msg).replace('<', '&lt;').replace('>', '&gt;')
             # publish notification on internal broker
             private_auth = {
                 'username': BROKER_USERNAME,
@@ -206,7 +208,7 @@ def execute(self, data):
             }
             topic = 'wis2box/dataset/publication'
             publish.single(topic=topic,
-                           payload=json.dumps(msg),
+                           payload=msg,
                            qos=1,
                            retain=False,
                            hostname=BROKER_HOST,