Two European search engines, Ecosia and Qwant, have formed a partnership to develop their local search engine to reduce reliance on Google and reduce dependence on Big Tech firms in the U.S.
Under a collaborative initiative called European Search Perspective (EUSP), scheduled for a 2025 launch, the companies will form a 50-50 partnership to improve French and German language search results, CNBC reported.
Ecosia, based in Berlin, is a sustainability-focused company that vows to plant a tree for every 50 searches on its engine, while Qwant, a Paris-based search engine, prioritizes user privacy through advanced data protection mechanisms.
Despite their differing brand images, Ecosia and Qwant are partnering to challenge Google's monopoly in search
Currently, Ecosia and Qwant rely on existing tech from companies like Microsoft to deliver search results.
With the EUSP in place, Google will no longer dominate the market, as search results will be tailored to European cultural preferences and linguistic nuances. The venture aims to better serve its French and German audiences by providing more relevant search outputs.
Christian Kroll, CEO of Ecosia, told CNBC the project had been made possible, in part, by new tech-focused competition rules in the European Union -- Digital Markets Act (DMA).
The DMA, which came into force earlier this year, requires Big Tech firms it calls "gatekeepers" to offer fair and reasonable access to their platforms. In Google's case, the search giant is required under the DMA to share data that would be useful for training a search model.
Moreover, the companies are striving to make the best use of GenAI and mitigate rising API costs following Microsoft's significant price hike for Bing's search APIs. However, neither Ecosia nor Qwant will completely give up on Bing or Google, reported Tech Crunch.
"We are European companies and we need to build technology that makes sure no third-party decision — for instance, Microsoft's decision to increase costs to access their search API — could jeopardize our business," Olivier Abecassis, CEO of Qwant, told CNBC.
"It is nothing against the U.S. or U.S. companies. It is all about the sovereignty of our business and companies," he added. Abecassis will also serve as CEO of the new venture, which hasn't yet raised funding from external investors.
With their own index, they do, however, hope to diversify the underlying technology that underpins their services. As GenAI technologies become more prevalent in many consumer-facing digital businesses, it will reduce their operating costs and provide a technical foundation for their own product development.
The new search engine will have a "privacy-first" search index. This innovative index will prioritize user privacy, power Ecosia, and Qwant's search engines, and promote privacy-focused search solutions built on Qwant's technologies that were redesigned in 2023.
