Support a good cause by switching search engines
April 6, 2008 by brilloyobbo
Doona is a non-profit search engine set up in 2006 by three French high school students and claims to be the world’s first search engine which donates all of its revenue to humanitarian and social causes. It currently has 36 partners - all chosen by a popular vote on the internet - including WWF, SOS Villages Enfants and Medecins du Monde.
It is now supported by Exalead, France’s leading search engine, and Megaglobe of the U.S., which provides data and technical support. “We get absolutely nothing from the partnership,” Francois Bourdoncle, CEO of Exalead, told Le Monde. “But the project seemed so insane that I liked it.”
Veosearch is a similar project, started in January 2008 by several graduates of HEC (France’s premier business school), which uses data from Yahoo and donates a part of its advertising revenue to partner associations. “Our revenue was 21,500 euros in March,” said founder Guilaume Heintz. “We gave half of that to partner associations.” So far, the site has had 15 million hits.
via Le Monde
