Ecosia, Qwant partner on search engine tech to counter Google’s power

LISBON, Portugal — Ecosia and Qwant, two search engines competing with Google, announced a partnership Tuesday to build a European search index and reduce their dependence on U.S. Big Tech firms.

The two internet search firms agreed a joint venture, called the European Search Perspective or EUSP, with ownership split 50-50 between both firms. With a view to launch in France in early 2025, the venture aims to serve “improved” French and German language search results.

Ecosia is based in Berlin, while Qwant is headquartered in Paris. Qwant is a privacy-focused search engine that promises not to track users or resell their personal data. Ecosia’s search engine focuses on sustainability, pledging to plant one tree for every 50 searches on its platform.

Search infrastructure is what powers our access to the web, but it’s currently primarily controlled by Google, the dominant search engine with a more than 90% share of the global market. Even alternative search engines, such as Ecosia and Qwant, have to rely on existing tech from companies like Microsoft to deliver search results. 

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. The Digital Markets Act, 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 company is required under the DMA to share data that would be useful for training a search model.

Currently, alternative search engines like Ecosia, Qwant and DuckDuckGo don’t develop their own back-end infrastructure. The new venture will see them build their own search index from scratch, however, amassing results from a mix of different search engines. Ecosia last year switched to a mix of Google and Bing search results. 

Ecosia and Qwant say their new search index will be “privacy-first,” using technologies from Qwant that were redesigned in 2023. Both companies will use the search index themselves but the tech will also be made available to other independent search engines and tech firms.

The launch comes as alternative search providers like Ecosia and Qwant are being forced to grapple with higher prices from Microsoft to access its Bing Search API (application programming interface), a piece of software that lets developers access the tech giant’s backend search infrastructure.

“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.

Europeans are “very dependent on the United States for our technology,” Kroll said in an interview last week ahead of the launch. The election of Donald Trump as U.S. president could escalate geopolitical tensions, he added — and this could be a problem for Europe’s reliance on U.S. technology.

He pointed to the disruption to European energy supplies after Russia cut off gas to Europe following its invasion of Ukraine, saying this should serve as a warning for what can happen when an entire continent becomes too dependent on a single country for a key resource.

Part of Ecosia and Qwant’s push to build a search engine from scratch will be to offer a “transparent and secure data pool” for new AI technologies, according to the companies.

Search providers may get “more restrictive” in future, given the shift toward generative AI, Ecosia’s Kroll told CNBC.

“They know they’re sitting on a very important resource for this paradigm shift,” he said. “Yes, you need large language models to have good chatbots. But you also need access to a good index.”

The rise of OpenAI’s ChatGPT has put pressure on incumbent search giant Google, as people increasingly turn to the viral chatbot to search for information.

Meanwhile, a slew of new search engines, such as Perplexity, have also entered the market, offering their own generative-AI-based alternatives to Google.

Google has fought back with its own generative AI search product, integrating its Gemini large language model into search results.