Like the French army, the National Assembly will abandon Google for Qwant

It's a small revolution at the Palais Bourbon. The Member of Parliament for the Republic in Ille-et-Vilaine, Florent Bachelier, has confirmed with The Obs that the institution would now use Qwant as a search engine.

In the National Assembly, it is the question of the protection of personal data that has led to this choice. By the end of the year, the 577 deputies, their staff and 851 officials, or about 3,000 people, will have Qwant as their default search engine.

The French army had also made this decision in early October. Florence Parly, Minister of the Armies, spread the message during a visit to Suresnes. Qwant will now be the default search engine for her department, she said.

European alternative to Google

The Qwant search engine is a European alternative to Google while respecting the privacy of its users. While Google remains the main point of entry for European research, the search engine has seen the number of visits to its site climb over the revelations of mbad data breaches private.

Between January and May, a period during which a whistleblower revealed that the data of 50 million Facebook users had been diverted to Cambridge Analytica, the number of unique visitors increased from 48 to 70 million per month.

Qwant now holds 8% of the online research market in France. Created in France in 2013, it is now funded in part with the support of the European Investment Bank.

"We do not stalk, it has been verified"

In November 2017, Qwant's boss, Eric Leandri, explained to West France the operation of his site: "You arrive on the Internet with your IP address: this is your phone number. Our friendly competitors collect cookies that contain all your Internet transactions; it ties you to their platforms. They know what you are doing. We make your phone number and we make you anonymous: when you call me in masked number, I answer you anyway but I do not know who you are. "

"We do not stalk and it's confirmed. The European authorities have already come to check if we really did what we said "he promises.