I've been carefully optimistic about this - even if ecosia and qwant decide to start heavily serve ads it still means we have an alternative which will supplement privacy focused frontends and metasearch engines.

[–] jol@discuss.tchncs.de 19 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Both already mostly relied mostly on ads before this partnership. Nothing changed. But perhaps they will need less ads if running their own search index is cheaper than using Bing's.

[–] Lazycog@sopuli.xyz 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Would love this. Hopefully Qwant and Ecosia can make it happen soon.

[–] jol@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 3 days ago

Either way, I use ecosia without as blockers because I want this to happen asap.

[–] jlow 9 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Just be aware that fasch media company Axel Springer owns 20% of Qwant ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwant)

[–] kungfuratte@feddit.org 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Also at least one of the original founders is a dubious character. He's left Qwant in 2020 though.

https://netzpolitik.org/2022/digitale-raeuberpistole-der-absturz-der-suchmaschine-qwant-und-ihres-gruenders/ (sorry, only found a German source quickly, you may have to use a translator to read it).

[–] notastatist@feddit.org 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

"Gleichzeitig soll das Unternehmen geplant haben, Staatstrojaner und Drohnen autoritären afrikanischen Regierungen in Zusammenarbeit mit Waffenhändlern aus Polen und dem Nahen Osten anzubieten." From the Text.

"At the same time, the company is said to have planned to offer state Trojans and drones to authoritarian African governments in cooperation with arms dealers from Poland and the Middle East"

This part is from Qwands owner his second business, whis is more like spyware. This is hard.

[–] Lazycog@sopuli.xyz 2 points 3 days ago

Damnit. Hope the share doesn't grow any more than that atleast.