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From September 2023, we will be gradually rolling out our new unique search offer. This will happen over several months and won’t apply to everyone at the same time. This means that when you search through Ecosia, we work with either Microsoft Bing or, with your consent, Google to provide you with search results and ads. In order to do this, we automatically collect data required by search partners to prevent bot attacks and ad fraud - which includes your IP address and search terms.

For a growing number of users we can now provide Google results and advertisements. In order to supply these results and ads, Google requires a cookie to be set on your browser and access to your device’s local storage to store information. We will ask for your consent before doing this and if you do not agree, we will provide non-personalized results from Microsoft Bing.

In order to provide non-personalized Microsoft Bing results and ads, we are contractually obliged to implement Microsoft Clarity to capture how you use and interact with our website through behavioral metrics, as well as sharing your IP address and search terms. This behavioral data is captured in individual search sessions and is not tied to a user profile unless you consent. The processing of this data is necessary for the provision of our service. Although Ecosia does not use this information, it is used by Microsoft Bing for site and advertising optimization, as well as fraud protection. For more information about how Microsoft collects and uses your data, visit Microsoft’s privacy statement and Microsoft Clarity documentation.

Microsoft Bing does also offer personalized search results and ads. This service requires a cookie to be set on your browser which creates a personal profile. We will ask for your consent before enabling this and you can change your choice at any time in your cookie preferences. More information on cookies and how to take control of your preferences can be found in the “What about cookies?” section.

  • BobaFuttbucker@reddthat.com
    3·
    1 year ago

    Up until this moment ecosia was my preferred and most used search engine. No more, sadly.

    Someone tell DuckDuckGo to plant trees plz.

      • rgb3x3@beehaw.org
        1·
        1 year ago

        So this is a search aggregator that searches across the main sites? And they’re hosted by individuals and I can create my own instance if I want?

        That’s actually real cool

        • JokeDeity@lemm.ee
          1·
          1 year ago

          In concept, it didn’t work that well when I tried it a few months ago, personally.

    • m_randall@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      1 year ago

      I’ll join in. Just signed up for the trial of Kagi after seeing an article on here and I’ve already subscribed. I don’t miss google at all and am excited to play with some of the innovating features (lenses look neat).

      http://kagi.com

      • Samsy@lemmy.ml
        1·
        1 year ago

        It’s a paid service and needs login. Well… searXNG looks like to be the opposite.

  • Matomo@lemmy.ml
    0·
    1 year ago

    It sounds like they don’t really have a choice in this unless they completely switch up their internal search engines, right? Like, it’s a shame, but not exactly something they’re to blame for? Or am I missing something?

    • macallik@kbin.socialOP
      2·
      1 year ago

      I am not blaming them as much as I am reevaluating the level of privacy I’m sacrificing given the additional context in their updated statement

      1. ‘Their’ privacy policy now roughly equates to “We don’t really do anything but you should read the privacy policy of Microsoft (and optionally Google).” It feels less like an alternative search engine and more like a middle-man that still passes the data along. Speaking of which:
      2. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but they are touting ‘non-personalized results and ads’ as if that’s the privacy end goal, when it’s really just the side-effect of companies not having data on you. Based on their updated policy, they are giving the illusion of privacy via ‘non-personalized results’ while capturing/sharing searches, behaviors & IP address that I’m guessing can easily be deanonymized @ Microsoft.

      Maybe I’m misreading something? It reads like the same experience of using Bing without the marginal benefit of a personalized experience.

      I think it’s a catch-22 because I’d imagine a sizeable cohort of their pro-environment demographic is likely pro-privacy/anti-‘corporations knowing everything about you’, and so while the increase in usefulness in data can increase their charitable donations, it will rub lots of users the wrong way.

  • macallik@kbin.socialOP
    0·
    1 year ago

    I used it as my primary browser on my laptop/desktop. I supported the cause and through my usage I planted +150 trees, but the trade-off is steepening so I’m going to have to jump ship.

    I’ll be pivoting to DuckDuckGo as my main search engine, and use Brave for more nuanced/specific results.

      • macallik@kbin.socialOP
        0·
        1 year ago

        Wooof. I’ve started using Brave for less then 24 hours and I’m already jumping ship. Anyone backed by Peter Thiel is an immediate ‘no’ for me.

        I’ll have to try Whoogle or SearXNG but search engines seem to regularly block my queries so that I only get random results from wikimedia. Maybe I can resolve the issues w/ self-hosting? Otherwise, I might just try to redirect most of my questions to open-source LLMs