A search engine which promises ad-free results and doesn't track users' online movements is launching in the UK on Thursday (October 6). Neeva which launched last year in the USA, is also kicking off service in France and Germany.
Neeva was set up by Sridhar Ramaswamy, a former head of Google's ad business who worked with the company for 16 years. Now the business he has built with his tech expertise has 600,000 users in the US.
The search engine is free to use, but that's not all Neeva offers. It has password-manager capabilities and a virtual-private-network (VPN) available to subscribers.
The subscription model is how Neeva can go ad-free. The UK price is likely to be about £5 per month, Mr Ramaswamy told the BBC.
Neeva also works on a browser extension and an app for smartphones. The company has raised $77.5m (£68m) from investors.
Mr Ramaswamy told the BBC: "We felt the traditional search engines had become about advertising and advertisers - and not really about serving users. Google has a dominant position in the marketplace - and the incentive for them to truly innovate, to truly create disruptive experiences, is not really there.
"And then also as a company, they feel obligated to show more and more revenue and profit to their shareholders, so they just keep increasing the number of ads."
