(The current answers to criterias is my personal one, alongside the necessary text and ″proofs″ to answer those. I will extend that post later on, with more criterias, previous documentation about the service and company, and a simple personal Pro’s / Con’s)
Criteria check :
Specific Search-engine criterias :
Minimum Requirements¶
Must not collect personally identifiable information per their privacy policy.
When you search on Qwant, we naturally receive your search terms, as well as the IP address of your computer or mobile device, and information about your browser (the “User Agent”). We use this data to process your inquiry and return your inquiry, as well as the corresponding answers. We pseudonymize what we need to keep for statistics and for transfer to our technology and business partners.
Qwant does not use ad tracking cookies or any other techniques to recognize you, store your search history, or track your internet browsing.
Processing of our users’ queries
To respond to the query by displaying results and ads matching your search, as well as for security and reliability purposes of its services (detection of spam, automated activity, fraudulent clicks on ads…), Qwant processes the following data:
– The entered keywords;
– Information about the browser you use (the User Agent);
– Session preferences information (if you use Qwant set up for the results in France and with the user interface in the French language, for example);
– A salted hash of the user’s IP address with the salt that changes ever three months at the latest (i.e. the result of a mathematical formula based on this IP address, not the IP address itself);
– The approximate geographic area of origin of the search at the scale of a region or a city (as deduced from the IP address)
Qwant retains for 7 days the keyword(s) entered associated with a pseudonym identifier calculated from the User Agent of your browser and the salted hash of your IP address. After this period, the keywords are no longer associated to an identifier and are retained for 12 months for aggregate statistical analysis (e.g. to know how many times a keyword is searched over a given period of time).
This processing is necessary for the performance of Qwant’s Terms of Use, on the basis of article 6.1.b of the GDPR (processing necessary for the performance of the contract between you and us), and meets Qwant’s legitimate interest (article 6.1.f of the GDPR) to secure and make its services reliable.
In order to provide you with relevant results from around the world when we do not have the answers to your queries by ourselves, we have partnered with Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited to provide a portion of our search results and provide contextual advertising based on the keywords entered and your geographic region.
To this end, Qwant may transfer to this partner the following pseudonymous data related to your query:
– The keywords of the search;
– Information about the browser you are using (the User Agent);
– The first three bytes of your IP address;
– The approximate geographical area from which the search originated, at the level of a region or city;
– The salt hash generated from your IP address, your User Agent and a salt that changes at the latest every 3 months;
– A random token generated by Qwant (aimed at limiting data overlap).
This processing is necessary for the performance of Qwant’s General Terms of Use, based on Article 6.1.b of the GDPR (processing necessary for the performance of the contract between you and us).
In addition, for purposes of security and reliability of our partner’s services (detection of spam, automated activity, fraudulent clicks on advertisements, etc.), Qwant may also collect and transfer to this partner your full IP address.
This processing is in the legitimate interest of Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited (article 6.1.f) to secure and make its services more reliable.
This data is transferred to this partner within the European Union, and may be retained in accordance with Bing’s Privacy Policy for a maximum period of 18 months.
Must not allow users to create an account with them.
Management of registered users accounts
Qwant does not require you to register to use the search engine. However, you may wish to register to log in and personalize services. You are free to manage your account information (modify, correct, update and delete information).
In order to manage its users’ accounts and to send our newsletter (if you have chosen to subscribe), Qwant collects the following data:
Information about the user preferences (if you use Qwant set up for the results in France and with the user interface in the French language, for example); Hash of your user password; E-mail address of the user; Optional data when entered by the user (name, firstname, city, website…)This data is retained by Qwant for the duration of the existence of your user account in order to allow its proper functioning. They are then deleted after 7 days from the account deletion request. During this period, you have the possibility to reactivate your account using your initial login and password.
This processing is necessary for the performance of Qwant’s Terms of Use, on the basis of article 6.1.b of the GDPR (processing necessary for the performance of the contract between you and us).
Best Case
Should be based on open-source software.
While the search engine in itself isn’t open, nor can be self-hosted, they do open their gecko-based phone applications, extensions and their OpenStreetMap service.
- Should not block Tor exit node IP addresses.
Qwant does its best to protect your privacy while you search, but you can take additional steps to protect your internet browsing. For example, you can use a service such as a virtual private network (VPN) or TOR relay service so that even Qwant does not have access to your real IP address.
HTML aka noJS captchas may be displayed when using Tor relays from my personal usage, but not that commonly.
In addition, they do offer a lite, no javascript version of their search engine via https://lite.qwant.com/ (They do proxy-redirect clicked results on those via their servers, however.)
