One of the basic activities of the Internet is searching: we search for what we want to know, we search for what we want to know how to do, we search for what we want to buy or read or what we want to be entertained by. Although Google is the king of search engines, there are many other search engines who can help us find what we want including Ecosia.
Ecosia: the search engine that uses its income to plant trees
The search engine Ecosia is based in Berlin, Germany, and despite the fact that it has a small team of around 28 members, it has managed to gain a foothold in a sector globally dominated by Google: Ecosia currently has more than 520,000 searches per day.
In general, Ecosia works like any other search engine: users log in (or add an extension to their browser to make it default), enter their search in the box and access the page with the results of their interest.
However, its great differentiator is that it is committed to sustainability, since it donates approximately 80% of their income to different organizations related to tree planting non-profit around the world, and so far has managed to plant more than 77,000,000 trees.
Where do they get that income from? Well, just like Google, Ecosia shows in the first results ads from relevant pages but labeled as advertising from which they get the money to operate and donate to these foundations. And so you know exactly where their income is going, they publish on a monthly basis.
In addition to your donation to different organizations to plant trees, Ecosia also uses 100% renewable energy: It started building its own solar plants in 2018 and since then, the company has added enough clean energy to the grid to power all of its pursuits.
Trying to make a place against the power of Google
Of course, it is difficult for many other search engines, such as Ecosia itself, to gain a foothold in the face of the enormous power of Google. But despite this, the company continues its struggle to continue its service.
In fact, Ecosia recently rejected Google from being part of the default browser selection options on Android, a service that Google was forced to offer to users as part of a settlement with the European Commission. As you may remember, last year the European regulator fined Google 4.34 billion euros for forcing manufacturers and mobile operators to install its services by default, including the browser.
In addition to the fine, Google decided to inform that interested parties could submit a bid to access a search engine choice screenwhich will be displayed when users turn on their new Android mobile devices, as a way to avoid accusations of monopolistic activities and to force users of their operating system to use their search engine by default.
However, this access would not be guaranteed, since only three search engines are shown per country: search engines will have to win an auction which will give them this access for one year. Ecosia has described this process as unethical, and asked Google to instead allow users freely choose a search engine instead of auctioning access to the highest bidder.
The CEO of Ecosia, , commented on this: “We are deeply disappointed that Google has decided exploit its dominant position in the market in this way. Instead of giving broad and fair access, Google has chosen to give discrimination a different shape and make everyone but themselves pay, which is not something we can accept.”
“We use our income to plant trees in areas affected by deforestation or desertification, not to get into costly and unnecessary bidding wars with other search engines. We will discuss our options with the European Commission. It should be up to users which search engine they want to use, and not Google at all”.
A search engine that protects user privacy
As it continues on its way trying to gain users, Ecosia cares about the security of user data as does not create personal profiles based on search history, and every week the history data is deleted. A concern for privacy that he shares with another of the outsiders in the search engine sector, DuckDuckGo.
In addition to not providing personal information or search data to third parties, not even to sell more advertising, Ecosia ensures that protect your searches from potential spies with strong encryptionand only collects a small amount of data, an option that you can deactivate with the “do not track” button in your browser settings, and in addition to contributing to improving the environment with each search, you will be sure that your information will remain private.
Stay informed of the most relevant news on our news channel
Facebook Comments
Disqus