If you’ve been following our work on the Digital Markets Act, you know we’re always pushing for tech that’s more fair, competitive, and more democratic. We are proud to share the next step in our journey towards tech independence - building our very own search index! We've joined forces with our friends at Qwant to build the European Search Perspective which will provide a solid foundation for future technologies, including AI infrastructure.
What is a search index?
A search index is a database used by search engines to retrieve information and present them in the most relevant order; the same way libraries label and sort books.
Currently, we rely on a mix of both Google and Bing libraries to provide you with answers to your searches. Starting in 2025, our new index will be added into the database pool to serve results in both the French and German language. We are starting small and in the home countries of both Qwant and Ecosia respectively.
Why build our own search index?
Through the European Search Perspective we’re aiming to build digital sovereignty within Europe and provide a transparent and secure data pool for emerging AI technologies. We will develop a privacy-first search index, which will be used by both Ecosia and Qwant, and unlike proprietary solutions, we are making the index available to others.
We’re excited to mark the next stage of tech autonomy because it means that we are giving ourselves more freedom to build the future of green tech that we want. The amount of climate impact Ecosia can bring about has always been dependent on how well our search engine works for you, so as we see it, developing this innovative technology is essential for the planet.
