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Plant trees while you search the web

info.ecosia.org

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Re: Plant trees while you search the web

#31

Post by jk2faster »

okmokmz wrote: post #24
jk2faster wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Explain why you believe that's a negative? If you use Bing normally they would know your IP as well I'm a bit uncomfortable in letting MicroSoft associate my IP with what I search daily. I use GitHub and Linkedin and most of the time I'm logged in to at least one of those services. Now I don't know for sure if Bing associates these searches to my account based on the IP(someone can shed some light on this?). StartPa…

I definitely understand the desire to not have one's IP tied to their search history/browsing in some cases, but as this service makes no mention of being an anonymous or private search engine I don't think your critique is an actual issue with the service. Your use case simply doesn't match the purpose of this search engine

You're right, privacy is not their selling point. But they do have many phrases like "We don’t store your searches permanently" and "We don’t sell your data to advertisers" in their website, which are technically true but I misunderstood that they don't store my IP either because of those. I came across the text I quoted in the parent comment months later when I came across a thread in r/privacy and I passed it on. StartPage and DuckDuckGo still makes money from ads and doesn't share user IP. It would have been great if Ecosia functioned similarly, and in that case many people like me who are concerned about sharing IP with Bing(or other services) can join Ecosia for search.

Re: Plant trees while you search the web

#32

Post by WA »

_eigenfoo wrote: post #29
WA wrote: post #14

If you don't click on ads, or have an Adblocker installed, you generate no money for Ecosia. Thus, no trees get planted. I think it's important to point this out, because in their marketing, they make it sound as if searching alone is enough. There's also this little counter in the upper right corner. 45 searches (on average) are required to plant a tree. Of course, only if you click on an ad. You could even argue th…

> If you don't click on ads, or have an Adblocker installed, you generate no money for Ecosia. Thus, no trees get planted. Do you have a source/reference for this?

Sure, here you go: https://ecosia.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/206019452-How-d...

Like any other search engine, Ecosia earns money from clicks on the advertisements that appear above and beside the search results.

The advertisements on Ecosia are clearly labeled as Ads and are text links to websites that pay for each click by users. The ads are delivered to you by our partner Bing, who pays Ecosia a share of the revenue generated via these ads.

Ecosia earns a few cents for every click on an ad from Bing – or a portion of the purchase price made through an affiliate link. Ecosia then gives the profits from this ad revenue to planting projects.

We also make a small income on commission from our online store. All profits we receive go towards our projects – which means we can plant 20 trees every time we sell a t-shirt.

Re: Plant trees while you search the web

#33

Post by WA »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #27
WA wrote: post #14

If you don't click on ads, or have an Adblocker installed, you generate no money for Ecosia. Thus, no trees get planted. I think it's important to point this out, because in their marketing, they make it sound as if searching alone is enough. There's also this little counter in the upper right corner. 45 searches (on average) are required to plant a tree. Of course, only if you click on an ad. You could even argue th…

What if I repeatedly click on ads by advertisers I dislike?

You probably make them money. But I don't know if they have some click fraud protection in play. I assume they do. But a click here and there probably works.

Re: Plant trees while you search the web

#34

Post by jordigh »

amelius wrote: post #15
RenRav wrote: post #6

7 million active users, 70 million trees... only 10 trees have been planted per user? I like the idea but I wonder on average just how many searches it takes for one tree to be planted.

Is anyone verifying these claims?

I would like to know that too, because currently all sources on the Ecosia Wikipedia page are either self-published or primary, so the article reads like an ad. If this really is working and we can all truly combat deforestation and global warming by watching Ecosia's ads, I'd like to know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosia

Re: Plant trees while you search the web

#35

Post by _eigenfoo »

WA wrote: post #32
_eigenfoo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't click on ads, or have an Adblocker installed, you generate no money for Ecosia. Thus, no trees get planted. Do you have a source/reference for this?

Sure, here you go: https://ecosia.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/206019452-How-d... Like any other search engine, Ecosia earns money from clicks on the advertisements that appear above and beside the search results. The advertisements on Ecosia are clearly labeled as Ads and are text links to websites that pay for each click by users. The ads are delivered to you by our partner Bing, who pays Ecosia a share of the rev…

Thank you for pointing this out! This changes how I think about Ecosia.

EDIT: grammar

Re: Plant trees while you search the web

#36

Post by stffndtz »

hoschicz wrote: post #12
okmokmz wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a strong advocate for digital privacy and opposed to the majority of data collection that occurs, but this comment is FUD. None of the info that you listed would be private if you used Bing normally, so if you're worried about them having that info you'd need to stop using search engines all together >So when a search is done, our IP address is send to Bing. Explain why you believe that's a negative? If you use B…

DuckDuckGo also uses Bing and they don't send the IP AFAIK

AFAIK that is impossible

Re: Plant trees while you search the web

#37

Post by jk2faster »

stffndtz wrote: post #36
hoschicz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DuckDuckGo also uses Bing and they don't send the IP AFAIK

AFAIK that is impossible

StartPage does it with Google and is explained here: https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Artic...

So it is probably possible.

Re: Plant trees while you search the web

#38

Post by arbuge »

_eigenfoo wrote: post #35
WA wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, here you go: https://ecosia.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/206019452-How-d... Like any other search engine, Ecosia earns money from clicks on the advertisements that appear above and beside the search results. The advertisements on Ecosia are clearly labeled as Ads and are text links to websites that pay for each click by users. The ads are delivered to you by our partner Bing, who pays Ecosia a share of the rev…

Thank you for pointing this out! This changes how I think about Ecosia. EDIT: grammar

Out of curiosity, how else were you thinking a search engine would be making money?

Re: Plant trees while you search the web

#40

Post by luckylion »

nvrspyx wrote: post #11
jk2faster wrote: post #3

I used ecosia for a period of few months, and stopped when I read this their privacy policy( https://info.ecosia.org/privacy#privacy-policy-section-7 ): > For example, when you do a search on Ecosia we forward the following information to our partner, Bing: IP address, user agent string, search term, and some settings like your country and language setting. So when a search is done, our IP address is send to Bing. I…

> We don’t create personal profiles of you based on your search history. We actually anonymize all searches within one week. > Many web services collect user data in order to sell it without asking your permission. We don’t sell your data or your searches to advertising companies. > We protect your searches from potential eavesdroppers with a securely encrypted connection. This way we make sure that nobody between yo…

You just need to read it differently ...

We don’t create personal profiles of you based on your search history. (but our partner Bing might)

We don’t sell your data or your searches to advertising companies. (but our partner Bing is and hands us a piece of the rewards)

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