Search Engine Comparison: Startpage vs Ecosia
What’s the difference between Startpage and Ecosia? Dan Arel compares both search engines based on privacy, features, results, and more.
As the world begins to take privacy more seriously, more and more privacy services are coming to the spotlight. Some new, some old, but all claiming to offer more privacy to their users. While some, such as Facebook’s WhatsApp have not been as truthful about their privacy missions, others have, giving users a choice. Choice is actually good, the more companies that take privacy seriously, the better the internet is for users.
This does, however, leave users stuck between making tough choices. Previously, we looked at how Startpage compares to other privacy-respecting search engines such as DuckDuckGo and Mojeek, and now we are going to take a closer look at how Startpage compares to alternative search engine Ecosia. Ecosia launched in 2009, is based in Germany and not only boasts its privacy-friendly search results but an environmentally friendly mission as well.
On initial comparison, I want to start with the basics that were compared in the original comparison blog.
Startpage
- Privacy Policy: The Startpage Privacy Policy is a robust explanation that explains what it does and doesn’t do, and how they accomplish it. One of the biggest highlights is that Startpage does not collect any information about its users and does not log IP addresses or search history nor do they pass any part of an IP address to search partners.
- IP Address Protection: When you visit Startpage, their servers change your IP address to 0.0.0.0 rather than logging any amount of your IP address.
- Revenue Model & Search Index Partner(s): Startpage makes its money via ads that are served through Google’s Ad Network. Ads are served based on search terms alone and not the user’s profile or previous searches. Google does not receive any identifiable information about the user. When it comes to search results, they pull their results directly and anonymously from Google.
- Features: Anonymous View. With Anonymous Views, users can open search results through a proxy server that acts much like a VPN or Tor browser, hiding the user’s IP and other identifiable information from the page being visited.
- Country of Jurisdiction: The Netherlands.
- Content Distribution Network? None.
- Quality of search results: 5 out of 5 stars on search results. Now, you may be thinking “of course a Startpage consultant is giving Startpage 5 stars” and you may be right, but don’t forget that Startpage is pulling their results from easily the largest search indexing company on the planet. With many other search engines, you will often find yourself checking Google just to make sure you got good results. You don’t ever have to check Google when you’re using Startpage.
Ecosia
- Privacy Policy: Ecosia’s Privacy Policy is well done and is laid out much like an FAQ page answering questions about user privacy and the steps they take to protect it. Unlike Startpage, Ecosia logs a user’s partial IP address and passes it through to Microsoft Bing per search.
- IP Address Protection: Ecosia chooses to store partial IP addresses. For example, if your IP address at home is 127.123.111.111 they log 127.123.XXX.XXX. Per their privacy policy, this log of your search data will be removed by Ecosia after 7 days. The privacy policy does not state whether or not Microsoft Bing deletes the partial IP address they receive.
- Revenue Model & Search Index Partner(s): Like most search engines, Ecosia makes its money via ads. In their Privacy Policy, they state ads are served only based on your search term and not your search history or profile. They use Microsoft’s Bing Ads and, again, they state that they do send search data to Microsoft Bing. As stated in their privacy policy “we forward the following information to our partner, Bing: IP address (obfuscated), user agent string, search term, and some settings like your country and language setting.”
- Features: While not a product feature, Ecosia does use part of its ad profits revenue to plant trees around the world.
- Country of Jurisdiction: Germany.
- Content Distribution Network? Ecosia uses Cloudflare as their proxy server which offers them protection from DDoS attacks and speeds up delivery but does come with its own privacy concerns (see below).
- Quality of search results: 4 of 5 stars. For many searches, Ecosia does a good job. They gather their results from Microsoft’s Bing search network.
Now, the first difference is that we are comparing Startpage, which serves Google search results, and Ecosia, which serves Bing. When comparing these two big tech non-private search engines, you can see why Startpage came out with a 5 out of 5 and Ecosia came in with 4.
But that’s not all that stood out. Ecosia is logging and sharing partial IP data, compared to Startpage that is zeroing out all IP addresses. While there is certainly less to trace based on only 6 digits, there is still something to track. Like DuckDuckGo, this partial information would be passed through Microsoft Bing’s ad network. Ecosia does state that when sending to Microsoft Bing, the IP is obfuscated, but confirms that the same log does include a user’s string, search term, country of origin, and language setting.
They also automatically store your Bing ID in a cookie if you have not enabled “Do Not Track” on your browser with the purpose “to improve the quality of your search results.” There is an option to manually opt-out of this, but it’s not designed to instantly be private.
Both search engines also offer a mailing list. While both are optional, it is important to note that Startpage chose a privacy-friendly method in running their mailing list, and Ecosia uses a non-private vendor. While this should not be a dealbreaker when it comes to search results, I believe anytime a privacy-focused company uses non-private methods to reach customers, it should at least be noted.
Cloudflare
Now, there is one red flag that was raised when visiting Ecosia using Firefox and running uBlock Origin, which is that it was blocking Cloudflare. Ecosia uses Cloudflare as a Content Distribution Network (CDN) which many companies use to help against DDoS attacks and to speed up their services.
This causes a problem for those who are privacy conscious though. When you pass through Cloudflare, they are able to collect more data on you before you reach the Ecosia servers. The issue here is that while Cloudflare does claim to protect the data they collect, they do collect it and one reason listed is to “Monitor and analyze trends, usage, and activities in connection with the Websites and Services and for marketing or advertising purposes.” They are also located in the United States and are subject to US laws when it comes to turning over such information to authorities. They also combine information they gather from you with the information they acquire from third parties.
Cloudflare also takes part in information sharing with partners. While most of this sharing is between customers of Cloudflare (not you, the search engine user) this is not true for all information sharing. Cloudflare takes part in what they call “good-faith belief sharing” with authorities. What makes this language problematic is that “good-faith” is left up to the discretion of Cloudflare. There is no legal precedence for what “good-faith” is and the user has no control over this.
In the end, Ecosia is an environmentally friendly, search engine that is limiting some personal search data but is also not taking every step it could to ensure no profile is made of its users. Obfuscated IP addresses can be helpful, but can also be traced back to users when tied to other information such as user strings and location. Their use of Cloudflare is the biggest challenge to considering them a fully private search engine, and users should understand that.
Choosing your service should always be based on your threat model, so it is possible that Ecosia offers millions of people just enough privacy for their lives, however, by using Startpage you’re getting better results and true privacy. The choice ultimately comes down to each user and how much data they are willing to give up for search results.
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