Ecosia and Qwant just switched on a European search index - see what it means for France

Berlin and Paris, 6 August 2025: Ecosia has begun routing a portion of its French search traffic through Staan, a new European index co-developed with Qwant. The shift represents a deliberate move away from the U.S. back-end services the two companies previously relied on.

European Search Perspective venture

Staan - short for Search Trusted API Access Network - is operated by Ecosia and Qwant under their European Search Perspective (EUSP) joint venture. The index now returns web, news, and image results directly from EU-based servers. Ecosia expects 30 percent of French queries to run on Staan by December 2025.

• Launch market: France, effective 6 August 2025
• Ownership: Ecosia (Berlin) and Qwant (Paris) via EUSP
• Technology: privacy-centric index hosted entirely in Europe
• Previous model: results syndicated from U.S. providers
• Expansion: open API for other search or generative-AI services
• Governance: Staan allows outside investors, while Ecosia remains steward-owned

The goal is digital plurality and less foreign dependency - Christian Kroll, Ecosia CEO, in a statement to Tech.eu

Why it matters

Ecosia and Qwant have long positioned themselves around privacy and sustainability, yet both depended on Microsoft Bing for core web results. Building their own index gives them control over the full search stack, helps ensure compliance with EU data-protection rules, and offers European firms an alternative to U.S. APIs.

Market context

European regulators are pushing for greater digital competition through initiatives such as the Digital Markets Act. Staan provides regional players direct index access without forcing data sharing with non-EU entities, potentially lowering barriers for new entrants in search and generative artificial intelligence.