The two European rivals of Google, Ecosia and Qwant, announced that they are officially developing a web infrastructure for Europe. This decision came as a way to gain independence from U.S. technologies and give European users a search engine alternative to Google, Microsoft, and others.
“If the United States decided to pull US technology from Europe… then we would have to go back to phone books,” stated Ecosia’s CEO.
The European infrastructure, also called European Search Perspectives (EUSP), is currently based in Paris and was created in Paris and Berlin, with 50-50 ownership between the two firms. It is set to officially launch in early 2025 in France, offering search results in both French and German.
Currently, search infrastructure is powered primarily by Google – the dominant search index with over 90% global market share. Up until now, alternative solutions like Ecosia and Qwant have lacked the resources to build their own search engine infrastructure, often relying on companies like Microsoft to power their search results. However, this could become an issue – especially for non-U.S. users.
With the well-established European privacy regulations, Ecosia and Qwant stated that the new search engine would be focused on “privacy-first”. This is why they have promised a “transparent and secure data pool” for all AI technologies. Now, the new search engine will push relevant content for the users rather than ads.
At the same time, the decision also resulted from being forced to pay higher prices to access its Search API.
“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,” the CEO of Qwant, Oliver Abecassis, told CNBC.
The CEO of Ecosia, Christian Kroll, has also expressed concerns regarding the European reliance on U.S. technology, which might become a possible issue with the latest political shifts.
Both companies are currently raising funding for developing a fully functional search engine and licensing the back-end infrastructure – especially to those interested in training AI systems. Ecosia and Qwant are expecting to start testing the search results in early 2025 in France and by the end of 2025 in Germany.
“We’re bringing together the most experienced search engineers to build sovereign tech in Europe” stated Christian Kroll, the CEO of Ecosia.
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