We’ve just hit a new milestone: We’re now delivering search results from EUSP to our users in Germany!
EUSP (European Search Perspective) is our joint venture with Qwant to build a European search index. We started serving results to users in France last year, and now we’re excited to go live in Germany too. You won’t notice a big difference – but this is a big step towards digital sovereignty.
Search results are controlled by just two companies
A search index is like a massive digital library, a database from which search engines retrieve, organize and rank information, to ensure you find what you need efficiently.
But have you ever thought about where your search results come from? Did you know that nearly all search queries in Europe are served by two non-European companies? Just because it’s behind the scenes, doesn’t mean it’s not a big problem.
Imagine going to a food court with dozens of different restaurant options, but only two or three kitchens in the back cooking everything. While it looks like there are many options, the reality is the food is all produced by a few operators who decide what gets made and how good it is.
The European Court of Human Rights has stated that media pluralism is a prerequisite for democracy. If this erodes, there’s not fewer outlets serving your food, but fewer kitchens behind the counter.
Now take it a step further. If one of these kitchens decides to stop serving you, or is ordered by someone to shut its doors, there’s no backup. This is a deep risk for Europe: critical infrastructure (or the ‘kitchens’ behind the shopfronts) are sitting in the hands of a few operators who could cut off access from one moment to the next.
This isn’t just a hypothetical possibility. It happened recently when the US government banned the export of Anthropic AI software to non-US citizens – a deeply concerning display of using access to technology as a means of control, thus setting a worrying precedent.
Expanding our Europe-based search index
We believe deeply in building digital sovereignty for Europe so we can support pluralism and be less reliant on foreign tech infrastructure. This is one of the reasons we created EUSP with Qwant. It gives us more independence and the ability to prioritize the things that matter to us and our users.
The search index is a comprehensive database of websites and digital content that provides alternative results not just for smaller search engines, but also startups and the European data and AI industry. We started delivering EUSP search results in France last year, where the majority of our traffic is now from EUSP. We’ll continue to ramp up in Germany, and answer the majority of German queries by the end of the year,
More competition and diversity is better for everyone
By building our own search index, we – and other smaller search engines – now have another kitchen in the back, one we can control. We can offer diverse perspectives to our users, create more competition for all market participants, and drive greater innovation. And we’re supporting digital pluralism in growing fields like AI, providing an independent and secure data basis for development of European products.
Built and hosted in Europe
EUSP’s index is hosted in Europe, so it complies with strict European regulations including the GDPR – prioritizing data protection and enabling freedom of choice. Plainly put: your data stays where the law protects it, under EU jurisdiction and in EU data centres.
Search with Ecosia and know that you’re supporting a company that uses 100% of profits for the planet, while also advocating for a better, fairer internet.
