French privacy protection search engine Qwant and German non-profit search engine Ecosia announced that they have joined forces to jointly develop a new European search index - "European Search Perspective" (EUP). The move aims to reduce dependence on US technology giant search engines and promote innovation in European local search engines, especially in the field of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). In the face of Microsoft's substantial increase in Bing search API fees, and the increasingly cautious sharing of search indexes by giants such as Google, establishing independent indexes has become an urgent need. The editor of Downcodes will explain in detail the significance and future prospects of this cooperation.
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Currently, both Ecosia and Qwant rely on Bing's search API, with Ecosia also using Google's search results. With Microsoft significantly increasing the fees for its Bing search API, reducing dependence on these technology giants has become an urgent need. Although the two parties will not completely stop using Bing or Google services, they hope to diversify the core technologies that support their services through their own indexes, thereby reducing operating costs and providing a technical foundation for product development with GenAI technology.
Christian Kroll, CEO of Ecosia, said that with the emergence of AI tools, the needs of search indexing have changed, and Bing and Google have become increasingly cautious about sharing their indexes. Therefore, developing an autonomous search index becomes critical. In addition, Europe's regulatory environment also encourages local technological innovation, which provides a good opportunity to establish independent search indexes.
The new partnership is called "European Search Perspective" and will be owned 50% by Ecosia and Qwant each. Although the two parties did not disclose the specific investment amount, they said that existing shareholders are supportive of the plan. It is expected that this new index will start serving French users in the first quarter of next year, and plans to expand to German users by the end of 2025. It will also support English and other European languages in the future.
Qwant's engineering team will move to the new joint venture, and Qwant CEO Olivier Abecassis will also serve as CEO of the new company. He said that joint development can help expand the data pool, accelerate technology research and development, and can also attract more investment. Ecosia will provide data and financing support to develop the technology needed for the search engine.
Compared with other privacy-first search engines like Brave, the search index of EUP (European Search Perspective) will provide search results on a "privacy-first" principle and will not make personalized recommendations based on user data. Kroll emphasized that having an autonomous search infrastructure is particularly important to safeguard Europe’s data sovereignty.
The collaboration between Ecosia and Qwant marks an important step towards digital sovereignty and technological independence in Europe. The future development of the "European Search Perspective" is worth looking forward to. How it will change the European search engine landscape and what impact it will have on the global search engine market will be the focus of the industry. The editor of Downcodes will continue to pay attention to the progress of this cooperation and bring you the latest reports.