5d ago

TIL German search engine Ecosia and French search engine Qwant have started teaming up since last year to build a European search index

betterweb.qwant.com Ecosia and Qwant join forces to develop European search index - Better Web

Ecosia and Qwant today reveal a new joint venture, European Search Perspective (EUSP), to develop and build search engine infrastructure in Europe. EUSP aims to contribute to digital sovereignty within Europe and ensure the continent has a strong, independent alternative to existing search technolog...

Historically, they have both been relying mostly on the Bing index, with Qwant building its own index for a while and serving a mix.

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4mo ago

Ecosia and Qwant join forces to develop European search index

betterweb.qwant.com /en/2024/11/08/ecosia-and-qwant-join-forces-to-develop-european-search-index/

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15 comments

I've been carefully optimistic about this - even if ecosia and qwant decide to start heavily serve ads it still means we have an alternative which will supplement privacy focused frontends and metasearch engines.
- Both already mostly relied mostly on ads before this partnership. Nothing changed. But perhaps they will need less ads if running their own search index is cheaper than using Bing's.
  
  Would love this. Hopefully Qwant and Ecosia can make it happen soon.
- Just be aware that fasch media company Axel Springer owns 20% of Qwant ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwant)
  
  Also at least one of the original founders is a dubious character. He's left Qwant in 2020 though.
  https://netzpolitik.org/2022/digitale-raeuberpistole-der-absturz-der-suchmaschine-qwant-und-ihres-gruenders/ (sorry, only found a German source quickly, you may have to use a translator to read it).
  
  Damnit. Hope the share doesn't grow any more than that atleast.