In this episode, Bruce’s victim is Wolfgang Oels, Chief Operating Officer of Ecosia. We discuss the importance of Digital Sovereignty, the new European search index that Ecosia co-founded called the European Search Perspective, and Wolfgang’s so-crazy-it-just-might-work scheme to buy Chrome for 1 Euro, and save the planet as a result.Transcript[Bruce:] Hello, everybody and welcome to another edition of the For a Better Web podcast in which I, Bruce Lawson, Technical Communications Officer at Vivaldi Browser, interview somebody who in their own industry segments, segment, sector, or in their own way, is working to make a better web. And today I am delighted to be joined by Wolfgang Oels, who is the king, the head, lord, the boss of…[Wolfgang:] The COO of Ecosia.[Bruce:] Of Ecosia, there is, as many of you will know, because Ecosia partners with Vivaldi. A search engine, hi, Wolfgang, thank you for being here.[Wolfgang:] Thank you for having me.[Bruce:] Nice t-shirt. What does it say on it?[Wolfgang:] It says “Ecosia”.[Bruce:]Tell me more. How is it trying to compete in a market so utterly dominated by Google and, to a lesser extent, Microsoft?[Wolfgang:] Yeah, I mean, first of all, we want to be different. That’s why we do it. We want to be different and we want to be different in three ways. And the first is that unlike the companies that you mentioned and and others, our profits don’t make the richest men of this planet even richer.100% of our profits forever is dedicated to climate action, preserving climate, preserving biodiversity. We are planting trees in biodiversity hotspots. We just planted our 250 millionth tree. I think we are probably the biggest corporate tree sponsor that I know of. We invest money into renewable energy as opposed to running illegal gas turbines somewhere. So we even invest more money than our searches into renewable energy than our search is required. We drive out dirty electricity so so these are the things we do this the first reason why we are different. So I lately came to think about Ecosia as something like the the Robin Hood of search engines so we take from the from the wealthiest and give to all of us.There’s a second reason I think why we are different or why we want yeah why we want to be different why we are different yeah we are data privacy friendly. And the more time I invest into that subject. And so I’m not a lawyer, but it’s actually, you know, you see that with the US Cloud Act, the US Patriot Act and this. And so all US companies basically have to give their data to US government institutions. whether they want or not. Interestingly, some of them do that very voluntarily, without large resistance. And this is scary.And we first don’t keep data from our users’ personal data beyond, you know, there’s a spam protection for a short time. We look at IP addresses to make sure that they’re not two million searches per second from a single IP address. But beyond that, we don’t keep any personal information. So we are private by design. And we are private by being headquartered in the European Union, outside Ireland. And that is the second reason, I think, why people, or why we are different and why people use us.And the third is more recent, well, with the Trump administration, the second one. Yeah, clearly, outspokenly, making it their target to disperse the European Union. And by brutally intervening in our democratic elections, we need to. … currently we have to just watch this because we are so dependent. We are dependent militarily, but we’re also dependent digitally. Donald Trump with one switch could turn off the internet as we know it, yeah, in Europe, including search. And therefore, we need a sovereign European search infrastructure, the web index, the European web index as critical digital infrastructure, which is critical from a sovereignty perspective. It’s also critical from a democracy and economic perspective because search engines choose winners and losers.[Bruce:] Indeed, you know, people have lived or died by their Google search engine results placement. I notice that you’re like Vivaldi in that the best way to ensure you can never be forced to give any user data is not to collect it in the first place. We’re the same as you: we don’t do tracking. So how… touchy subject and not my favorite subject, but it matters… how can you make money if you’re not behaving like the big guys? Because presumably, although you’re not for profit, the desire, the aim is to make money so you can invest it in your climate action.[Wolfgang:] We love money. I love money. As Gandhi said, “money is a wonderful thing. You have to be a good steward of it”. We put all of it into something we benefit from, and those after us. We earn money with the advertisement. And for this advertisement, we also still are dependent on the big advertising platforms.What we do believe, though, is that we are dependent on the big advertising platforms. is that you don’t have to have a massive, you don’t have to have an intrusion business in order to sell advertising. For a search engine, basically the advertisement, the corresponding advertisement is very simple. It depends on what you type … on the question you type. And that is a very good indicator for what advertisement could be. It could be interesting.Why do other companies? collect so much data, so much more data than this. Well, because they have other, they run other advertisement businesses. They run display advertisements on websites, on their other services, and they want peoples’ search queries to inform that display advertisement elsewhere. And we don’t have that. We don’t run advertisement of such sorts. We don’t need that data.[Bruce:] I mean, speaking personally, not for my employers or anybody else, but I don’t have a problem with contextual ads. If I’m looking at a website about vintage punk rock music, having an ad telling me that there’s a new compilation of stuff I’d be interested in is entirely acceptable for me, and often it’s a service, because I can’t know about every product. It’s when they make a great big database about me. And they consider that I’m probably in the market for something else that I haven’t expressed an interest in. And then I’m a few years ago I got pursued around the web with adverts for garden sheds. Because I think I’d typed in something that … anyway. But yeah, I hear you. It’s the intrusive behavioral profiling.[Wolfgang:] And you know, I personally, I agree with what you say. So why would I not be interested in better display advertisement and so on? And personally, first I think as a company, we think people should have that choice. So do you want better display at somewhere or don’t you? that’s that should be a choice. And secondly i think the issue is that that these companies collect so much data that even goes beyond that. So where where we don’t see clear reason to be honest why that should be collected it’s basically collected for for later usage.[Bruce:] For me it depends very much I don’t mind if you want to change the brand of toothpaste I buy. I’m very much dislike it if you want to change my opinion of my immigrant neighbors. Or, you know, it’s when they try to social engineering that I find it deeply disturbing.[Wolfgang:] Yeah. Or when people report my location data to ice, I do not like that. So.[Bruce:] Absolutely. Absolutely. Not so, not actually a search-related question, but last year, there was the big court case in which the Department of Justice in the USA was looking at whether Google are a monopoly and whether to require Google to sell Chrome or Chromium, upon which Vivaldi is based, as are many other web browsers. And Ecosia very interestingly offered to to buy or to steward chromium what was can you remind me of the details of that – and why?[Wolfgang:] There were I think several companies. I remember Perplexity bidding $40 billion. I said: is that a good price? should we bid itself ourselves as well and then I took a step back and I calculated okay so if we if we had if we own Google Chrome you know we would have the default search position and more or less roughly earn a hundred billion dollars a year. So over 10 years that’s a trillion dollars. Let’s have a look what what we could do with it.There’s research about how to save the Amazon forest. And I think it was $80 billion. Then then what about the Congo basin, the other big rainforest? I think it was $70 billion. And then there are some some natural forest left in in Asia, and those I think were $25 billion to save. And then if you want to connect some some of these patches, that was let’s say another 30 billion dollars. And then you there are those iconic tree planting projects like the great green wall, and these things.so you you add these up and then you say okay we need to switch to renewable energy and that’s profitable so it doesn’t need money from anyone except in the global south. That’s profitable as well, but people don’t have the investment capital for it so how much how much much equity do we need to provide for that? I think it was a 120 billion dollars. And then, you know, there’s a lot of laws that actually should prevent what is currently happening, but they’re not fought through and we would employ 10,000 lawyers globally to execute these laws. So, and I listed all of these things.And then then I ran out of, and after six hundred billion dollars, I ran out of fantasy. So basically we could save the world for six hundred thousand, six hundred billion dollars. And so we could pay Google 400 billion instead of the 40 billion and give Chrome back after 10 years because our mission is done. And I thought this was so interesting. So humanity is literally destroying the ecosystem lives in. We are going through an absolutely epochal threat. And saving it, well, averting this, costs a lot of money, but compared to the amounts of money that the richest people on earth have, it’s nothing. And I don’t know why they are not using that money for it. They would be more famous like Jesus Christ. In 10,000 years, people would still talk about them at the fires. I don’t know why they don’t do that. But I thought it was interesting to basically show to the world that that the digital economy, it could work for us. Currently, it’s working for a lucky few but it could work for us and it could solve our most dire problems.[Bruce:] I mean, obviously, $600 billion is a vast amount of money. But it seems to me it’s not that much money to right all of these problems. And presumably, you know, Elon Musk or one of his friends. (I don’t know if he has any friends, but correct if I’m wrong, Elon Musk’s lawyers.) But one of one of these peers could just do that. And as you say, being remembered for all the right reasons. But where were you going, where were you planning to get the 400 billion to buy it with?[Wolfgang:] I mean, we would pay the 600 billion, yeah. So we would buy it for a euro, yeah. At first, yeah. So and then over time, pay the 400 billion, out of the cash flows from it and then give it back.[Bruce:] Got it. I was going to say, I’ve been looking in my wallet. And there’s 10 pounds so I can put towards this effort.[Wolfgang:] We can find it from the cash laws from it. If hedge funds can do that, why shouldn’t we be allowed to do that?[Bruce:] And sadly, in my opinion, sadly, you didn’t get to own Chromium. Do you think that the judge was right in deciding that Google could keep Chromium, or do you really feel like you should be King of Chromium as well as Emperor of Ecosia?[Wolfgang:] Ecosia doesn’t need kings. Yeah, I’m a humble, a noble, servant in the vineyards of Ecosia, yeah. But, yeah. So, and, and, you know, Judge, Judge Mehta has a much broader picture on the details and, you know, comprehensive view on everything. And I know there’s probably, you know, difficult decisions to make. He said this is a monopoly and being a monopoly is illegal. And that is, I think, two years ago that he said that. And if I just look at the market share now, it hasn’t changed, has it? So it was ineffective, completely ineffective, up to today. And I don’t see anything still in the pipeline after two years that would make me optimistic that anything would change.So I think, whether on this particular question or whatever. So in general, he failed. and strongly. I mean, between saying this is a monopoly and this is one of the biggest companies we’ve ever had, and then basically not having any remedy in place that is promising, it’s a big gap.[Bruce:] Yeah regardless of whether the stewardship of chromium is in the right place, nothing has changed in the market. So all that time and effort and all of those many many acres of newsprint written about the case and nothing really has changed. I remember –I know I look like i’m in my early twenties but i’m a little older than that– I’m old enough to remember when google were saying “don’t be evil”. (And I’ve many friends who work for Google: I’m not talking about you personally. I’m talking about the top people who have to answer to shareholders). You’re a nice guy, Wolfgang. But where is my assurance at Ecosia wouldn’t turn evil?[Wolfgang:] So I think with us, it’s fortunately very, very clear and easy. So we gave a golden share to the Purpose Foundation. And that is a foundation that promotes, globally promotes, a different kind of ownership: steward ownership. So in many constitutions around the world, for instance, the German constitution has written: ownership does not serve the the owner only, but it has to also serve the wider, the common good. And there are many constitutions who have something similar. And I don’t know of any constitution that says, no, no, no. Ownership’s only function is to serve the egoistic benefits of the person who owns it. That doesn’t exist.Unfortunately, that’s not the way how this is happening in practice. And the Purpose Foundation has made it their goal to promote a different kind of ownership. It is more in line with our constitution, and with our interest. So democracy should assist and serve the common interest.[Bruce:] So in other words, Ecosia can’t turn evil because the terms of the legal foundation of the company/ organization/ not-for-profit prohibits it?[Wolfgang:] The Purpose Foundation that can make sure that we never alter our corporate statutes to allow for dividend payments or anything like this. So our our profits will always go to a climate action.[Bruce:] Splendid, splendid. I’m aware that i’m taking up lots of your time but i do want to ask you… actually the the main reason i invited you on here is to talk about digital sovereignty and making sure that Europe is digitally self-reliance. You’ve partnered with Qwant, which I believe is a French company. And together you started a European Search Index project. Tell me more, please.[Wolfgang:] Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah. We formed a joint venture called European Search Perspective. Qe are building a European sovereign European web index as a critical infrastructure. And basically an API that delivers search results to Qwant, to Ecosia, to everyone else, to everyone else who would like to get served by us. And the reason for it is twofold. So, A, it helps us to become independent from our suppliers, who are, at the same time, our competitors. And it helps European societies. Actually, I would say, democracies across the world.Media plurality always has been the key to democracy. And if you look at the market share of some of these digital media companies, it’s higher than Pravda in its best times. So that is that is a second reason. And it’s a monumental task. I think Microsoft spent over a hundred billion dollars on it. And you know, today technologies are better. So we we are able to do it at a fraction. And we go language by language and we need a certain scale in each language to be able to afford the fixed cost. It’s basically just fixed costs but so far we have German and French.[Bruce:] So you’re indexing language by language, and obviously German and French because of the companies have founded it. I’m trying to understand what it is. Is there a website I can go to and type in a French or German query now? Or is it a great big black box that other people could hook into with their own search engines? Or what is it right now?[Wolfgang:] So European Search Perspective offers you an API that you can hook into. You can build your own search index. And search a company, your search service. And then you hook intoEuropean Search Perspective, into the API and you you send the query there and then then the system tells you this is something we can answer at least as good as any other competitor so we strongly recommend you to to show this result. That’s roughly for two-thirds, that’s what we are at this point.And we tell you, might be a bit, we’re a bit unsure: w e don’t have enough scale yet. So search engines are trained by their users. And the more users you have, the longer tail queries you can answer. And so we don’t yet have the scale to be really 100% sure we provide a good answer. And then you can go elsewhere to buy that answer, or you nevertheless show it.[Bruce:] So is the choice of French and German language web searches is that patriotism, or is that because those are underserved languages in your competitors?[Wolfgang:] No, it’s purely economic reasons. So building up this web index is is a hundred percent fixed costs. So you have to crawl the entire web and then take the documents, and vectorize them and have all of them lying there somewhere so that with a few hundred milliseconds you can you can rank them. So there’s a huge infrastructure waiting for one search or for a billion searches. And so therefore we need to go to markets where we have higher market shares to be able to send many queries there to be able to amortize the fixed costs. So France and Germany are just the two markets where Qwant and us together have the highest market share.[Bruce:] And of course they’re very populous nations. So there’s, you know, whereas Luxembourgish is probably a great language, the population of Luxembourg, even if each of them were doing a search every hour, it’s just not that many people, presumably.[Wolfgang:] True.[Bruce:] Fascinating. And what state is at? Can I go somewhere today and send an API call? Or do I have to pay you? What happens?[Wolfgang:] So it’s a paid API. There was one of the syndications. service providers that a few years ago increased their prices from one euro to 12 euros. It’s quite an increase yeah and and so we we are we are serving these results for a reasonable price that helps us to build the infrastructure, but on the other side it’s the business to others so it’s reasonable pricing. You can go to the website and indeed just drop an email and then then people will get back to you. Or you just switch to ecosia and then then you can benefit from it as well.[Bruce:] You’re using it today?[Wolfgang:] yes.[Bruce:] I made a Ecosia default search in Vivaldi a few weeks ago now, and I’ve been enjoying it. Well, actually, I’m English. So, of course, I’m barely monolingual, but I don’t do many German or French searches, but I shall dig out my schoolboy French. (I’m too stupid to speak German. I struggle with masculine and feminine. So when there’s neuter as well, that’s just, that’s just too tricky for my brain.) Is the European search prospect of, Is it a separate organization that you and Quant have started? Is there any EU money involved in it?[Wolfgang:] No, no, it’s a separate company. Each of us owns half. And no, we did not get any subsidies or funds from the European Union. I don’t even think that they’re that they’re using us. I think they still haven’t managed to even switch their search engine, which is a bit sad, to be honest. So no, we didn’t get any support.[Bruce:] Well, yes, the EU talks a big game about digital sovereignty. But every time I meet the European Union, I have to do it on Microsoft Teams. Whereas we’re talking now on Whereby, which is a Norwegian-based video conferencing system. I would have thought that EU should be funding lots of European search engines, not just yours, funding lots because of plurality equals democracy.[Wolfgang:] And you know, you could make this, and we would be ready to do so, yeah. So the Web Index is an infrastructure, yeah? and we would be happy to provide it at cost. So if the European Union would cover for the fixed costs, we could make it open at basically no cost, as an incremental cost, which is basically no cost.[Bruce:] Next time I’m having moules and frites and fruity beers with Ursula von der Leyen, I’ll tell her about this. Not a problem. We meet regularly, as you might imagine. Wolfgang, thank you so much for answering my intrusive questions. Really appreciate, A, what you’re doing, and of course, Qwant with the European Search Perspective.Listeners and viewer, I will put all of the links to the stuff we’ve discussed in the show notes. so you can find it. And hopefully, in a few months or a couple of years, Wolfgang, you’ll come back and we can talk about how the European Search Perspective and Ecosia has stolen a great deal of market share from the Silicon Valley behemoths. And I do hope you’re not taking a rocket to Mars because that seems to be very wasteful. I hope that when you’re a multi-billionaire you’re just planting more trees. Thank you so much for your time. T[Wolfgang:] Thank you. Thank you for having me.[Bruce:] And thank you, everybody for listening. This was Wolfgang Oels from Ecosia. I’m Bruce Lawson from Vivaldi. You should probably use both of our products because it’s European independent tech. Bring you from the tyranny of the big monopolies who may not have your best interests at heart. Tune in next time, folks, it’ll be about a month, but I’d prefer not to have a fixed schedule and concentrate on quality and interesting conversations. Again, thank you, Wolfgang. Thank you, Giulia, for organizing this. See you next time on For A Better Web.Show notesWolfgang on LinkTinEcosia250 million treesGandhi quoteDepartment Of Justice vs Google caseEcosia has offered to take ‘stewardship’ of Chrome. And it’s not a bad ideaPurpose FoundationQwantEuropean Search Perspectivewhereby Podcast sourcesAmazon Music Audible Podcast Addict RSS Feed Spotify YouTube YouTube Music See all For A Better Web podcasts.