The EU Parliament is searching without Google

At the beginning it crashed a few times, but firstly, that also happens with Windows and secondly, you really have to start practicing what you constantly preach. The first comments from EU parliamentarians who are currently putting a small revolution into practice on office computers and work cell phones sound like this. A European search engine called Qwant has been running there since Friday instead of Google. The French product advertises that, unlike the US giant, it does not sell users’ personal data: “We are the search engine that knows nothing about them.”

Austrian MPs in particular have advocated for a comprehensive conversion of the EU servers in Parliament, but also at the EU Commission. “It’s about limiting Trump’s ability to fool us,” says Andreas Schieder from the SPĂ–: “It’s only logical that we as the EU Parliament try to set a good example.”

Helmut Brandstätter from NEOS, also part of the initiative, sees the long-term goal as “digital solutions that meet our European standards for data protection and fundamental rights. Europe has the competence and the alternatives, now we have to use them consistently.” For Schieder, this means in short: “Switching to purely European solutions, from search engines to laptops.”

By Editor