To be transparent, Qwant has released its source code so third-parties, like the French National Data Protection Body (CNIL), can certify its non-tracking policies and see it's not collecting data it's also shared their code with white-hat hackers for security reviews. We are at a turning point where we as citizens, internet users and consumers have to choose to which extent we have a right to privacy, and to which extent we feel free to exercise it. "Our promise to the users and to the whole web community is that we are fair with everyone." "We won't try and lead you to a specific service instead of a better one because we would have business interests in doing so, or filter out results based on some political or commercial agenda," said Leandri. Qwant tries to keep its integrity despite making a profit. Qwant profited by selling 20 percent of its shares to Axel Springer, a right-leaning German publishing house for $6 million in 2014 (the publishing house's chief executive Mathias Döpfner has been publicly critical about Google's power). However, they make their profits through pay-per-click websites, having agreements with a Berlin-based affiliate internet marketing firm called Zanox, which connects users with commercial websites (Qwant earns between 44 to 88 cents per click), they also have planned partnerships with TripAdvisor (details are yet to be announced) and eBay. "Any company with such power may be tempted to abuse it, but even with the best intentions, the effects that such tailoring algorithms can have are hard to predict." "The more you get used to it, the less you will wonder how and why an AI recommends a certain path instead of another, which story to read, what products to buy," he said. Leandri worries most about the growing dependence on AI, or the "digital assistants" that anticipate our needs. Searching for news on President-elect Trump on Qwant. "It certainly is faster and easier to exploit people's privacy to educate AIs, but we believe there are and will be alternative solutions." "They pretend that you can't have artificial intelligence without giving up control over your data, but for the most part that is a lie," said Leandri. Everything we do is increasingly stored and can be retrieved on demand."Įven where there are privacy options, Leandri warns of "false choices." For example, some companies might offer user privacy and tailored services but in the fine print, your data is still collected for the future. "You have to think of the internet not only as a means of communication, but more and more as a surrogate brain things that would have been kept within the impenetrable boundaries of your own mind, or in the sanctuary of your own home, are now sent on servers for the world or a few companies to see. "We are at a turning point where we as citizens, internet users and consumers have to choose to which extent we have a right to privacy, and to which extent we feel free to exercise it," Leandri said. Qwant is also synonymous with the European distrust of Google's domination of the internet, specifically how users are tracked for ads. The company's add-on extension with Firefox has roughly 5,000 weekly downloads, over 140,000 downloads in the past three months. In August, Qwant was added to the German, French and British versions of Firefox for desktop, as well as Firefox for Android and for iOS. A search engine for children called Qwant Junior is also up and running. There are 31 different categories like jobs, cars, gastronomy, health and hobbies. It recently introduced a section called " Notebooks," which creates profiles for users and offers a page of multimedia message boards where users can upload their own photos, videos and texts to comment and discuss. Qwant also has an artist page for each major pop star, including recent news on them and social media-related postings that relate to your search (search "green trees" on Qwant and it brings up Al Green's latest album). Qwant further distinguishes itself with its search categories, which go beyond the typical news, images and video tabs to include a social media category (that collects results from Twitter only) and a music tab that sources albums and songs from iTunes. Two people searching for "trip to Mexico" in Paris and in California will get the exact same result on. Qwant doesn't use cookies to follow users, and neither does it collect personal browsing data or do any data profiling. You could compare Qwant to DuckDuckGo, the search engine which avoids personalized search results, or the Dutch search engine ixquick, which also allows private browsing (but still brings up half a page of Google ads).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |