Ecosia and Qwant launch web search via European index
The two European search engine providers are gradually using their own search engine index for their web search. This is also intended to serve AI development.
(Image: Screenshot)
"The internet just got better: our European search index goes live", headlines the Berlin-based search engine provider Ecosia in its own blog this Thursday. As of today, the service is transmitting the first search results from its European search index to Ecosia users.
Initially, users in France will receive some of their search results directly from the specially developed index. By the end of the year, half of all French search queries should run through the index. According to information from Techcrunch, 33 percent of search queries in Germany will come from the index by the end of the year. Ecosia has not yet confirmed this to heise.de.
The move towards its search engine index is the result of a lengthy development process. In 2024, the company teamed up with the French web search service Qwant to develop the index. Until then, Ecosia used a mix of indices from the tech companies Google and Microsoft (Bing), according to the company.
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European index for search engines and AI companies
A search engine index is a kind of digital directory catalog of the World Wide Web. It contains information from websites and their content and makes them findable on the web, for example via a keyword search in search engines.
Ecosia and Qwant developed their search index in a joint venture called European Search Perspective (EUSP). They have created "Staan" as a means of accessing the EUSP's own search engine index. Staan stands for Search Trusted API Access Network and is intended to give alternative search engines and tech companies access to current web data. At the same time, it would guarantee the privacy and data security of users in the sense of a data protection-oriented search infrastructure, according to the Ecosia blog.
Ecosia sees the added value of its own search infrastructure as an important step towards more plurality in the search engine market. Currently, the majority of European search, cloud and AI systems are based on the services of American big tech companies. This makes entire industries politically or commercially dependent on non-European interests. A completely independent search index, on the other hand, would help to better serve domestic users and develop ethical AIs.
(dgi)
