Waiting for dawn in search: Search index, Google rulings and impact on Kagi

>Google: Google does not offer a public search API. The only available path is an ad-syndication bundle with no changes to result presentation - the model Startpage uses. Ad syndication is a non-starter for Kagi’s ad-free subscription model.[^1]

>Because direct licensing isn’t available to us on compatible terms, we - like many others - use third-party API providers for SERP-style results (SERP meaning search engine results page). These providers serve major enterprises (according to their websites) including Nvidia, Adobe, Samsung, Stanford, DeepMind, Uber, and the United Nations.

The customer list matches what is listed on SerpAPI's page (interestingly, DeepMind is on Kagi's list while they're a Google company...). I suppose Kagi needs to pen this because if SerpAPI shuts down they may lose access to Google, but they may already have utilize multiple providers. In the past, Kagi employees have said that they have access to Google API, but it seems that it was not the case?

As a customer, the major implication of this is that even if Kagi's privacy policy says they try to not log your queries, it is sent to Google and still subject to Google's consumer privacy policy. Even if it is anonymized, your queries can still end up contributing to Google Trends.

I hope they cache search results to further reduce the number of calls to Google.

And Marginalia Search was not mentioned? Marginalia Search says they are licensing their index to Kagi. Perhaps it's counted under "Our own small-web index" which is highly misleading if true.

Sounds like we need a nationalized search engine company then?

Does anyone else use the phrase "I'm going to google XYZ" while referring to actually searching it up on Kagi, DDG, or another search engine?

I wouldn't trust a nationalized search engine company.

That said, there are projects like Common Crawl and in Europe, Ecosia + Qwant.

I personally would like to see a search enginge PaaS and a music streaming library PaaS that would let others hook up and pay direct usage fees.