Europe Wants Its Own Search System: Filtering, Trees, and More
November 20, 2024
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
I am not going to recount the history of search companies and government entities building an alternative to Google. One can toss in Bing, but Google is the Big Dog. Yandex is useful for Russian content. But there is a void even though Swisscows.com is providing anonymity (allegedly) and no tracking (allegedly).
Now a new European solution may become available. If you remember Pertimm, you probably know that Qwant absorbed some of that earlier search system’s goodness. And there is Ecosia, a search system which plants trees. The union of these two systems will be an alternative to Google. I think Exalead.com tried this before, but who remembers European search history in rural Kentucky?
“Two Upstart Search Engines Are Teaming Up to Take on Google” report:
The for-profit joint venture, dubbed European Search Perspective and located in Paris, could allow the small companies and any others that decide to join up to reduce their reliance on Google and Bing and serve results that are better tailored to their companies’ missions and Europeans’ tastes.
A possible name or temporary handle for the new search system is EUSP or European Search Perspective. What’s interesting is that the plumbing will be provided by a service provider named OVH. Four years ago, OVHcloud became a strategic partner of … wait for it … Google. Apparently that deal does not prohibit OVH from providing services to a European alternative to Google.
Also, you may recall that Eric Schmidt, former adult in the room at Google, suggested that Qwant kept him awake at night. Yes, Qwant has been a threat to Google for 13 years. How has that worked out? The original Qwant was interesting with a novel way of showing results from different types of sources. Now Qwant is actually okay. The problem with any search system, including Bing, is that the cost of maintaining an index containing new content and refreshing or updating previously indexed content is a big job. Toss in some AI goodness and cash burning furiously.
“Google” is now the word for search whether it works or does not. Perhaps regulatory actions will alter the fact that in Denmark, 99 percent of user queries flow to Google. Yep, Denmark. But one can’t go wrong with a ballpark figure like 95 percent of search queries outside of China and a handful of other countries are part of the Google market share.
How will the new team tackle the Google? I hope in a way that delivers more progress than Cogito. Remember that? Okay, no problem.
PS. Is a 13-year-old company an upstart? Sigh.
Stephen E Arnold, November 20, 2024
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