Ecosia

Ecosia GmbH is incorporated and headquartered in Berlin, Germany. All core search infrastructure is hosted in Germany within the EU/EEA and subject to GDPR. As a German company, Ecosia is not subject to the US CLOUD Act. Ecosia's privacy policy confirms that user data is processed in Germany, with no user-selectable data residency options: it defaults to the EU.

Search queries are transmitted over HTTPS (TLS in transit), and data is encrypted at rest on Ecosia's servers. End-to-end encryption is not applicable in the traditional sense — search queries must be readable by Ecosia's infrastructure to generate results. No E2EE option exists, nor is one structurally possible for a server-side search engine. The at-rest and in-transit encryption qualifies for the mid-tier score.

Ecosia forwards search queries and IP addresses to Microsoft Bing (and, since August 2025, to the Staan/EUSP index for a growing portion of queries) to generate results. Bing receives the search term and session identifiers in non-anonymized form; Bing anonymizes IPs after 6 months, Ecosia after 7 days. Ecosia states it does not build personal profiles and does not sell user data. Since Bing has independent commercial interest in the data and shows ads on Ecosia results, this does not qualify as a strictly necessary processor relationship. The Staan index reduces — but does not yet eliminate — this Bing data flow.

Ecosia does not train AI models on user data. AI Overviews and Chat (launched December 2025) run on Mistral under an agreement that prohibits training on user conversations. Chat history is optional, encrypted at rest, and can be deleted on request. A full "AI-free search" mode is available in settings to disable all AI features without degrading core search. The no-training policy is clearly documented.

Ecosia's search engine source code is not publicly available. Ecosia's GitHub organization exists but contains only the Ecosia browser (a Chromium fork) and mobile app repositories. No search engine infrastructure, crawler, ranking algorithm, or index code is published. There is no source-available option for the search product itself.

No published independent security audit of Ecosia's search infrastructure has been found. No penetration test reports, SOC 2, ISO 27001, or equivalent certifications appear on Ecosia's website or public documentation. UpGuard monitors Ecosia's external security posture from publicly observable signals, but this is not an independent audit.

Ecosia's steward-ownership structure is publicly documented via the Purpose Foundation. The legal agreement signed in October 2018 prevents the company from being sold and bars shareholders from extracting profits. Monthly financial reports provide ongoing accountability. The governance mechanism is binding, publicly described, and independently verifiable — a stronger form of documented governance than most companies publish.

Ecosia is free with no subscription, account, or purchase required. Revenue comes from contextual advertising matched to the search query, not a persistent behavioral profile. Ecosia states it does not build personal profiles or sell user data. This differs structurally from behavioral advertising models. All profits go to tree planting and climate action.

All features — web search, image search, video search, maps, AI Overviews, and AI Chat — are free with no feature gating. There is no premium tier and no account required for any core functionality.

Ecosia publishes monthly financial reports showing total revenue, operational costs, and the exact amount allocated to tree planting and climate action. These reports are publicly available and published consistently. No dark patterns exist in pricing because there is no price. The monthly transparency cadence is exceptional among search engines.

Ecosia has no price at all — no subscription, no paid tier, no optional paid add-ons tied to the search product. The N/A condition applies, reducing Section 3's maximum from 17 to 14 points.

Ecosia is a stateless search engine that does not store user search history or personal data, and does not require an account. There is no persistent user data to export — not because export is unavailable, but because nothing is retained in the first place. This is a privacy feature, not a portability gap, so the question is N/A. Section 4's maximum is reduced from 20 to 14 points.

Ecosia does not offer a self-hostable version of its product. Self-hosting the full web index is not viable at scale, but self-hosting a search frontend that redirects queries to an API is possible (SearXNG is the clearest example). Ecosia has not made this option available, so the question applies and scores 0.

Web search without an internet connection is a contradiction in terms because there is no web to search. This is not a design choice Ecosia could have made differently; it is structural to the product category. Unlike 4.2, where SearXNG shows a self-hostable alternative exists, there is no offline equivalent for a live web search engine. The question is N/A, reducing Section 4's maximum by 3 points.

Ecosia is a web service accessible via a browser on any operating system, including Linux and BSD, which are open, non-proprietary platforms. No native desktop client is required; the web interface works fully across all browsers.

Ecosia's website follows standard web accessibility practices — the interface is keyboard-navigable and compatible with common screen readers. However, no formal WCAG conformance report or published accessibility statement was found on Ecosia's website. As a German company subject to the European Accessibility Act (mandatory since June 2025), formal documentation may exist but was not located for this evaluation.

Ecosia GmbH operates under a steward-ownership model via the Purpose Foundation. In October 2018, founder Christian Kroll legally transferred control to ensure the company can never be sold and profits can never be extracted by shareholders. The Purpose Foundation holds a veto share. This structure is functionally equivalent to a non-profit in terms of ownership incentives — there is no investor equity value to maximize.

No ownership change occurred in the past three years. The Purpose Foundation steward-ownership structure has been in place since October 2018 and remained unchanged through July 2026. No acquisition, merger, or restructuring occurred.

Ecosia has clear, documented ethical policies across multiple dimensions: no personal profiles, no behavioral advertising, no data sales, steward ownership preventing profit extraction, B Corp certification (Germany's first since April 2014), monthly financial transparency, and a climate-first mission embedded in its governance. The AI policy (no training on user data, full disable option) is publicly documented. These are not aspirational statements but legally binding or verifiably implemented.

Ecosia runs its operations on 200% renewable energy. Solar plants owned by Ecosia produce twice the electricity consumed by all searches. The company is carbon-negative, with each search removing an estimated 0.5 kg of CO2 through tree planting. Monthly reports document the exact trees financed and climate investments made. All profits are contractually committed to climate action under the steward-ownership structure.

Ecosia was founded in 2009 and has been in continuous active operation for over 16 years as of July 2026.

Ecosia has been highly active in recent years. The Ecosia browser launched in April 2024. The Staan independent European search index went live for French users in August 2025 — the first time in Ecosia's 16-year history that it has served results from its own index. AI Overviews and Chat launched in December 2025. Monthly financial reports are published consistently. The company maintains an active blog and community presence.