Things are moving veeeery slowly

For years we’ve been hearing about “digital sovereignty” in Europe, but at the same time, US tech giants are becoming ever more powerful and wealthy — in part thanks to us here in Europe. Although they make huge profits here, they pay practically no taxes — or very little — in this region. We have had to report several times with varying objectives on attempts to at least replace the Windows operating system with free and open-source software.

Now, the European Parliament is replacing Google as the default search engine on its computers with the French alternative Qwant. Of course, the announcement is immediately followed by caveats:

• Qwant is used when the browser is Firefox or Edge.
• Members of Parliament can continue to search via Google if they wish.
• This move should be seen as pro-European, not anti-American.

Last fall (2025), the French company Qwant partnered with the Berlin-based search engine startup Ecosia. Through the joint venture European Search Perspective (EUSP), they aim to build a strong, independent alternative to established search engines, according to Heise.de. The goal is a privacy-friendly search index. To make this happen, European governments are being called upon to create national search indexes as public digital infrastructure. We had reported of the creation of a EU-wide open web index (PRIDI) in the autumn 2024 from the Forum Privatheit in Berlin.

Read more https://www.heise.de/news/Im-EU-Parlament-Google-wird-als-Standard-Suchmaschine-durch-Qwant-ersetzt-11316264.html

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