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Ecosia

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Ecosia
Logo of Ecosia
Type of site
Private company
Available inEnglish and 26 others
OwnerChristian Kroll
Created byChristian Kroll
Revenue€1.7M (2016)[1]
URLwww.ecosia.org
CommercialYes
Launched7 December 2009; 14 years ago (2009-12-07)
Current statusActive

Ecosia is a web search engine based in Berlin, Germany, which donates 80% of its surplus income to non-profit conservationist organizations, with a focus on tree planting.[3][4][5] As a "social business", Ecosia is CO2-neutral[6] and supports full financial transparency,[7][8] and is certified by B-Lab as a benefit corporation.[9]

Search engine

Ecosia's search results are powered by Bing and Ecosia's own search algorithms.[10] Ecosia shows ads next to its search results, and are paid by their partners at Bing for every click on a sponsored link for having directed users to their advertisers. Payment from the advertisements vary depending on the competition on the keyword and the value of what is being advertised. Some search terms like "credit", "bank account", or "solar panel" come with more lucrative ads than for example "chocolate" or "sticky notes".[11]

Considering that not every Ecosia user clicks on an ad every time they search, Ecosia states that on average a search raises around half a Euro cent. It takes 45 searches to fund the planting of a single tree.[12] Additionally, the company assures that "algorithms [are] active, which are designed to detect fake clicks and invalidate them".[13] Also, the number of trees planted by the company is visible below the search bar, and below that there is a number of orange circles which all tell a short story on how the company is changing lives for the better.

Ecosia also raises funds through its second product EcoLinks, a Browser Extension that allows users to donate for free to Ecosia through their online purchases. Operators of online shops pay a commission to Ecosia (usually a rate between 2 and 10%) if a user lands on their shop through clicking on an EcoLink and purchases an item or any service.

Ecosia supports country-based country filtering but does not support the displaying of worldwide information as of July 2016.[14]

History

In September 2009, Ecosia received $21,500 in seed capital,[6] and the search engine launched on 7 December 2009, to coincide with UN climate talks in Copenhagen.[15] Over time, Ecosia has donated to different tree-planting programs. Until December 2010 Ecosia’s donations went to a program by WWF Germany that protected the Juruena-National park in the Amazonas. In order to make sure the protection was kept up, the program also drew up and financed plans with timber companies and the local communities.

Between December 2009 and August 2013, Ecosia donated to the Plant a Billion Trees program run by the Nature Conservancy, which the program aimed to restore the Brazilian Atlantic Forest by planting one billion native trees by 2015. By 2011, the search engine had raised over €250,000.[7] In 2013, about 200,000 people were using Ecosia, and 116,000 seedlings had been funded by Ecosia's donations.[5][16]

In spring 2013 Ecosia announced an improvement of its donation model as well as the quality of the search results. However, due to technical difficulties, the company temporarily had to use a feed subject to charges. At the same time, an Ecolink partner had suddenly terminated their partnership. As a result, due to the costs incurred to, Ecosia made an agreement with WWF whereby donations from November 2012 until February 2013 were restricted to 20,000 Euros per month. Once the financial bottleneck had been overcome, the normal donation model was immediately restored.

With a relaunch of the search engine on December 14, 2013 came the switch to a new reforestation program by The Nature Conservancy (TNC). The switch signified a slight change of paradigm since the company was no longer protecting forested areas but rather financing a reforestation program. TNC's program "Plant a Billion Trees" aimed at reforesting the Mata Atlântica, the Atlantic Forest of Brazil.

In 2015 Ecosia began funding reforestation in Burkina Faso as part of the Great Green Wall project, backed by the African Union and the World Bank, that aims to prevent desertification.[16]

According to B-labs, as of January 2015, "In donating 80 percent of its ad revenue, the search engine has raised over $1.5 million for rainforest protection since its founding in December 2009."[9] According to Ecosia, by 2015, the search engine had almost 2.5 million active users, and searches through it had resulted in more than 2 million trees being planted.[16]

In May 2015, Ecosia was shortlisted for The Europas, the European Tech Startups Awards, under the category Best European Startup Aimed At Improving Society.[17]

As of 27 April 2016, Ecosia ranks in the top 2 start-up for Germany in the StartupRanking.[18] Ecosia reached the milestone of 5 million trees planted on 7 September 2016,[19] 10 million on 29 July 2017 and over 5.5 million active users,[20] and 15 million on October 16 2017 and 17.5 million on 4th December 2017 and over 7 million active users on 10th December 2017. 20 million trees planted by 22nd January 2018, 2216hrs. [21]

Partners

With the first release on July 21, 2017, Brave web browser features Ecosia as one of its default search engines. [22] With the release of version 26 (on January 26, 2016), the Pale Moon web browser adds Ecosia as one of the default search engines. As of version 8 (on February 15, 2016), Polarity web browser switched to Ecosia as its default search engine.[23] Since version 44.0.2, Ecosia is the default search engine of the Waterfox web browser.[24] Since version 1.9, Vivaldi browser includes Ecosia as a default search engine option.[25].

See also

References

  1. ^ "Ecosia business reports".
  2. ^ "Ecosia Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  3. ^ "Ecosia debuts 'world's greenest search engine'". 3 December 2009. Retrieved 23 July 2015.
  4. ^ "What is Ecosia?". Ecosia. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  5. ^ a b Fischetti, Mark (26 November 2013). "Search the Web, Plant a Tree—Every Minute". Retrieved 23 July 2015.
  6. ^ a b "Ecosia". Retrieved 23 July 2015.
  7. ^ a b Carrington, Damian (3 June 2011). "Green search engine means you click and save the rainforest". Retrieved 23 July 2015.
  8. ^ "Donation Statements, Ecosia". Google, Ecosia. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  9. ^ a b "Ecosia GmbH, B Corporation". B-labs. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  10. ^ "Where do Ecosia's search results come from?". Ecosia Knowledge Base. Retrieved 2016-12-11.
  11. ^ "How does Ecosia make money?". Ecosia Knowledge Base. Retrieved 2016-03-26.
  12. ^ "How does the tree counter work? What does it mean when you say "You've helped plant X trees"?". Ecosia Knowledge Base. Retrieved 2017-10-19.
  13. ^ "Can I support Ecosia by randomly clicking on EcoAds?". Ecosia Knowledge Base. Retrieved 2016-03-26.
  14. ^ "Ecosia on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
  15. ^ Donoghue, Andrew (4 December 2009). "Microsoft-Backed Green Search Engine Attacks Google". Retrieved 23 July 2015.
  16. ^ a b c "What is Ecosia?". Retrieved 23 July 2015.
  17. ^ Butcher, Mike (18 May 2015). "The Shortlist Is Out — Vote Now In The Europas Awards For European Tech Startups". Retrieved 23 July 2015.
  18. ^ "Germany Top Startups - Adblock Plus, Ecosia, Dawanda | Startup Ranking". StartupRanking. Retrieved 2016-04-27.
  19. ^ "Ecosia Blog (English) — Today we reached astonishing 5 Million planted..." Ecosia Blog (English). Retrieved 2016-09-23.
  20. ^ "Announcement by Ecosia". Ecosia (English). Retrieved 2017-07-05.
  21. ^ "Announcement by Ecosia". Ecosia (English). Retrieved 2017-10-16.
  22. ^ "Brave Browser Github page". Github. Retrieved 10 August 2017.
  23. ^ "Polarity - Windows". Polarity. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  24. ^ "Waterfox - Help Waterfox".
  25. ^ Nestor, Marius. "Vivaldi 1.9 Browser Is Out with Ecosia Search Engine to Help Reforest the Planet". Softpedia.
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