History
Creation
Qwant was founded on May 25, 2011[4] in Nice by investor Jean-Manuel Rozan, by Patrick Constant via his company Pertimm (which developed other search engines for retail and other commercial services), and by Éric Léandri.[5][6] The name Qwant is, according to its creators, a combination of the letter Q from the word Quantities (or possibly Quantique[7])—evoking the mass of data that the indexing robot scans daily—and the English word want.[8]
The metasearch engine was launched in beta in 15 countries and 35 languages on February 16, 2013[9][10][11] then in final version on July 4, 2013 in its French localization after a year and a half of research and development.[12]
Development
In 2013, the creators of Qwant recognized and minimized the use of Bing’s programming interfaces before switching to their own indexing (supplemented by other sources), a process which would begin in February 2013, but lacking personnel and technology. They advertised using their own engine for indexing social media accounts and the "shopping" part of search results[13][14] but they still used external APIs.
Since then, and until early 2019, Qwant is considered to be completely based on Bing Web and Images searches, insofar as we can see a first passage of their Qwantify bot only from the end of 2014:[15] they provided results based 100% on a Bing API, since they then had neither a crawler nor indexer, without saying this dependence on the Bing API, as imposed by the API CGUs.
The German publishing group Axel Springer entered the capital in June 2014 with 20%,[16] to initiate the development of an indexing robot specialized in the field of news ("News") in French to try to compete with Google News.
On April 14, 2015, Qwant unveiled a new version of its search engine with an updated graphical interface[17] and is put under the spotlight by the Minister of Economy Emmanuel Macron, calling Qwant "Google French on the move."[18]
In October 2016, the European Investment Bank announced an investment in the company in the form of a €25 million loan over 5 years to expand its offer in Europe.[19]
In May 2016, the site claimed one million visits with 50% of visits coming from France and 30% from Germany.[20]
On July 4, 2016, Qwant announced a global partnership with the Mozilla Foundation.[21] A new version of the Firefox web browser resulted from this partnership, specifically optimized for the use of Qwant. On August 2, 2016, a mobile version was also made available. On this occasion, Qwant said it wanted to reach “5% to 8% market share on the continent by 2018-2019” and “achieve €2.5 million in sales” in 2016. Continuing this partnership, a Qwant app for Android and iOS smartphones was released, based on a fully open source fork of Mozilla Firefox.
In February 2017, Qwant announced that it had raised €18.5 million, including €15 million from the Caisse des dépôts et consignations, which has a 20% stake, with the remainder coming from the Axel Springer group to remain in the capital.[22]
In March 2017, according to La Lettre A, the investment bank Bpifrance refused to participate in the raising of funds due to concerns about Qwant's use of technologies provided by Microsoft and servers at Huawei.[23] Éric Léandri confirmed the use of results from Microsoft’s search engine, Bing,[24] to supplement the results generated by the Qwant algorithm, as well as the use of Bing’s advertising department. It disputed that Bpifrance had access to Qwant’s internal documents, even though Bpifrance had financed several projects and therefore had access to some of these internal documents, to the point of making an event.[25]
However, in 2019, an audit of the DINUM, revealed by Le Media, will lead to explain the dependence on Bing, and even seek to measure it: it would be 60% of answers provided by Bing, without however being able to determine with certainty if everything would not come from the internal caches of Qwant - powered by Bing.[26]
In April 2017, Qwant announced it was acquiring Nvidia brand supercomputers for deep learning to refine its research results and to rent its computers to startups that need the use of these technologies.[27]
In June 2017, a version adapted to the Swiss cultural and media context was launched and made available in three of the four national languages: German, French and Italian.[28] In addition, Qwant announced that it would be integrated as the default search engine in the Fairphone 2 smartphone, thanks to the signing of a partnership with Fairphone.[29]
On November 10, 2017, Qwant bought Xilopix, a company based in Lorraine and publisher of the search engine Xaphir, which was experiencing financial difficulties. At the same time, Qwant signed a partnership with Inria for research on Internet research technologies that respect privacy.[30]
On November 29, 2017, Qwant signed a partnership with Fleksy that integrated the search engine into the Fleksy virtual keyboard.[31]
In January 2018, Qwant announced its expected arrival in China by the summer of 2018, in partnership with local authorities and companies to adapt it to local specificities.[32]
In March 2018, Qwant Junior was transcribed into an app for Android and iOS.[33]
In March 2018, Qwant became the official partner of the Tour de Corse motor rally and announced a world premiere, in partnership with the channel L'Équipe, broadcaster of the World Rally Championship in France, livestreaming of the specials on its homepage.[34]
On July 4, 2018, a new, more streamlined version of Qwant was unveiled, version four; the Qwant logo also changed for this new version.[35]
On September 12, 2018, a partnership between Qwant and Lexibook was announced to offer Qwant products (including Qwant Junior) on LexiTab tablets.[36]
On September 13, 2018, Qwant became the default search engine for the Brave browser in France and Germany.[37]
On October 2, 2018, Qwant became the default search engine for the French Ministry of armies' computer stations.[38]
On January 30, 2019, the aeronautical company Safran standardized the use of Qwant as a search engine within the company.[39]
On March 27, 2019, a partnership between Qwant and Wiko was announced. Wiko launched a new version of its View 2 Pro with Qwant as the default search engine,[40] becoming the first Android phone to not use Google as the default.[41] This was made possible thanks to the decision of Margrethe Vestager in July 2018 to impose a fine of €4.34 billion on Google for abuse of it's dominant position within the Android operating system.[42]
On April 8, 2019, the National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) decided to use Qwant as the default search engine for all collaborators of its four centres of excellence, including the launch site of the current Ariane 5 and the future Ariane 6, the Guiana Space Centre, Europe’s spaceport.[43]
On April 25, 2019, Qwant announced a partnership with travel comparator Easyvoyage in order to supply results for flight and hotel research.[44]
In May 2019, Qwant announced that it would migrate its servers to an infrastructure based on Microsoft Azure. Qwant would keep some of its indexing capacity on its own infrastructure so as not to be too dependent on any one provider.[45]
On September 25, 2019, Qwant was audited by the Interdepartmental Digital Branch to establish its share of dependency on Microsoft’s Bing, which is assessed at 64% for the web.[46]
In January 2020, Jean-Claude Ghinozzi became president of the company, replacing Éric Léandri.[47]
The French administration announced that Qwant would be the default search engine on all its computer stations by April 30, 2020.[48]
Huawei pre-installed Qwant as the default search engine on its P40 in France, Germany and Italy, in response to the US embargo.[49][50] In May 2021, the company’s president asked its shareholders for permission to borrow €8 million from Huawei.[51]
On May 12, 2020, Samsung Internet announced a global partnership with Qwant to globally deploy the search engine.[52]
At the end of June 2020, a restructuring began within Qwant. The closure of the offices in Épinal and Ajaccio was announced in the press to meet a requirement from the main shareholders, the Caisse des dépôts et consignations and Axel Springer.[53]
In 2020, Qwant’s net sales increased by 28% to €7.5 million.[54] Losses were reduced to €13 million from €23.5 million in 2019—nearly halved but remaining well above turnover, as the company is still in a deficit position.[55][56]
New direction
In 2021, Raphaël Auphan (Managing Director) and Corinne Lejbowicz (President) took over the management of Qwant. The new management ceases to dream of dethroning Google and aims "rather to build step by step a real ecosystem of private and secure navigation on the Internet." According to the new executives, the old Qwant shone by its opacity: the company kept the blur on its actual use, minimized its use of Bing, and was divided into a dozen legal structures according to the new management, which concealed the extent of the problems.[57]
In September 2021, Qwant became available in all European countries, and made it to the top 5 search engines available on Android phones. The European Commission signed the "choice screen" on Android phones teams in June 2021,[57] and Qwant contributed to the passage of this resolution.
On November 25, 2021, Qwant publicly announced its contribution to the development of the "Manifesto of French startups" by the association France Digitale, intending to bring concrete proposals related to digital for the 2022 presidential election.
In early 2022, a new executive committee composed the management of Qwant: Laurent Ach, CTO, Flore Blanchard-Dignac, CMO and Amélie Mathieu,[58][59] CFO.
In June 2022, Qwant launched a browser extension, Qwant VIPrivacy, to block cookies and trackers on websites visited. Their website deployed a new graphic identity on the same occasion.[60][61]
In January 2023, for Data Privacy Day, Qwant released the first edition of its online privacy barometer alongside Proton, Murena and Olvid.[62]
Evolution of services
In December 2014, Qwant announced the beta release of Qwant Junior, its search engine for young audiences, targeting 3 to 12-year-olds. It launched experimentally in several French schools in January 2015, in partnership with the French National Education.[63][64] On December 4, 2015, Qwant Junior was released as a final version.
On October 5, 2015, Qwant unveiled a Lite version of its search engine, intended for older browsers, aging terminals and low-speed Internet connections. This streamlined version of the website did not use JavaScript or CSS3, technologies deemed too resource-consuming.[65]
On June 3, 2016, the beta version of Qwant Music is launched, enabling searching for artists, albums and titles.[66] In September 2017, Qwant Music was detached as a subsidiary based in Ajaccio, Corsica.[67]
In 2016, new services were announced, expected to launch in 2016: Qwant Maps and Qwant Earth, which would offer tracking-free route searches.[68]
In March 2018, Qwant Junior was released as an app for Android and iOS.[69]
At VivaTech in May 2018, Qwant announced Qwant loT, the development of a search engine for the Internet of Things, in partnership with Kuzzle.[70] They also announced QwantMed, tools to protect private medical data.[71]
On June 8, 2018, the final version of Qwant Music was released.[72] A partnership was signed with the music streaming and downloading service Qobuz, allowing, in France, CD-quality online listening of tracks recommended by the search engine.[73]
At the end of August 2018, Qwant created Elunum, a search engine for elected officials and territorial agents. This engine was produced in cooperation with Villes Internet.[74]
On December 4, 2018, Qwant published Qwant Maps in alpha.[75]
At the MWC in Barcelona, from February 25–28, 2019, Qwant unveiled Qwant Causes. Similar in concept to Lilo and Ecosia, it was a search engine that allowed funding a project while conducting searches respecting the privacy of the users.[76]
On May 14, 2019, Qwant Causes was launched in partnership with HelloAsso, which was responsible for donations payment.[77]
On June 27, 2019, Qwant Maps was released in beta. At the same time, the Masq by Qwant service is released in alpha.[78]
On April 30, 2020, Qwant Causes was discontinued because "its use remains insufficient with regard to societal and associative issues addressed."[79]
On September 17, 2020, Masq by Qwant is in turn discontinued.
At the end of 2020, Qwant refocused its services around its search engine and its online map service, Qwant Maps. The first version of the mapping service was announced for the spring of 2021.[80] Qwant also discontinued its services in several countries but remained available in 39 countries worldwide.[81]
In June 2022, Qwant launched Qwant VIPrivacy, a browsing extension that automatically blocked trackers and cookies when browsing.[82] Qwant also launched the first privacy-friendly translation service on its search engine, in partnership with DeepL. It is possible to translate 28 languages from the Qwant search page.[83]
Controversies
Qwant was originally a metasearch engine that presented itself as a search engine. Two audits of the Interdepartmental Digital Directorate (Dinum) in July and September 2019 revealed that Qwant did have an index, but that it was not directly related to users' requests, according to LeMediaTV.[93]
With dated results, the technical appendix of the first audit notes inconsistencies in cache management and cannot exclude situations where all cached data can come from the Bing API and not from Qwant’s internal robots, especially since the team does not know precisely how to answer questions about the exact sequence of treatments, nor how to quantify its actual level of use of Bing.[94]
According to co-founder Éric Léandri, Qwant does not want to compete with Google, but simply "show something different."[95]
At its launch in February 2013, Qwant did not position itself on privacy, as demonstrated by La Lettre A.[96] This would be because the door of American venture capital could not be opened for risk of an inevitable and feared technical audit, in conjunction with the Snowden outbreak in June 2013, which highlights general Internet surveillance, which provides an exit strategy for Qwant.
Due to its results being very similar to Bing and Wikipedia,[97][98] a new version of the engine was published in April 2015, still based on the Bing API, but still without clearly displaying it as required by the Bing API.[99]
In the summer of 2016, in preparation for an audit conducted by the Caisse des dépôts et consignations with a view to an entry in the capital of Qwant, a code amendment to reduce the use of the Bing API took place a few days before the audit.
In September 2019, NextInpact revealed that CEO Éric Léandri threatened Qwant employees at the end of 2016.[100]
In March 2017, after a fundraising with the participation of the Caisse des dépôts et consignations, and after the refusal of funding by Bpifrance[101] because of this strong dependence on Bing’s API, new press articles touched on Qwant’s use of several technologies, algorithms and advertising governance, provided by Microsoft.
In its early stages, the similarity of its first logo with that of Google was pointed out.[102] A few days after its launch in July 2013, it was accused by the designers of the Canadian search engine GooL.li, launched in 2012, of plagiarizing its interface.[103] Mohamed Kahlain, co-founder of GooL.li, announced that he did not want to sue Qwant and said that he was not aware of the interface change.
In March 2017, Qwant, through the Open Internet Project, of which it is a member, accused Google of anti-competitive practices and filed a complaint with the European Commission in Brussels.[104]
The list of shareholders, grouped in a holding Angels 2, whose life president is Éric Léandri, it is possible to find Philippe Douste-Blazy, Thierry Gaubert, Franck Ullmann-Hamon or Claude Berda, among other investors from the world of advice and finance throughout the world.[105]
In July 2019, La Lettre A revealed that Qwant had been questioned by its main shareholder Caisse des dépôts et Consignations on Qwant’s twenty highest salaries; the letter talks about wages that are “manifestly indecent”.[106]
