Almost one third of Britons would be willing to switch from Google to a charitable search engine

A recent survey of 2,019 UK adults found that 49% of people think that big corporations like Google should donate more of their profits to charitable causes that help fight the climate crisis.

In 2021, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, recorded a gross profit of almost $123 billion. With a net worth over $1.4 trillion, it is one of the most valuable companies in the world (alongside other trillion dollar tech titans: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook).

A sizeable 31% of those surveyed went on to say that they would be prepared to switch from Google to a charitable search engine that donates most of its profits to charities that fight the climate crisis.

Google is the most widely used search engine in the world with a market share of about 92%. (Source: Statista.com). Within the UK search engine market, Google has a market share of 87.7%, followed by Microsoft Bing with 8.39%, then Yahoo! with 2.25%, and DuckDuckGo with 0.87%, with several smaller search engines making up the rest of the market share. (Source: Statista.com)

Discovering that 31% of UK adults, some 16.7 million people, may be willing to switch from Google to a charitable search engine that donates most of its profits to charitable causes that help fight the climate crisis was welcome news for SearchScene.com, who commissioned the study. (The research was carried out online by Research Without Barriers between August 13^th – 18^th 2021).

SearchScene’s homepage features stunning scenery from all over the world, hence the name: SearchScene.

Harnessing the power of individuals and channelling it into collective action

Like Google, SearchScene makes money from search ads. However, unlike Google, it donates 95% of its profits to major international charities who are working hard to address both the causes and effects of climate change.

SearchScene even lets its users choose which of the nominated charities they would prefer to support with their searches:

• Eden Reforestation Projects: Helping to plant trees & fight climate change

• Oxfam: Helping to fight global poverty.

• UNHCR (United Nations Refugee Agency): Helping people displaced by climate change.

• UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund): Helping to support children in danger.

• WaterAid: Helping to provide clean drinking water.

• WWF: Helping to fight climate change & protect wildlife.

If 31% of the UK adult population switched from Google to SearchScene, this could raise around £77 million each year for charitable causes that help fight the climate crisis.

If scaled up to a larger population more globally (aged 13+), SearchScene could potentially raise an incredible £2.7 billion each year for its nominated charities.

This is money that would probably be going into Google’s vast financial reserves, if people were still using Google instead of SearchScene.

Privacy Matters

Aside from harnessing the power of individuals and channelling it into collective action to help tackle the climate crisis, SearchScene also has much better privacy features than Google.

SearchScene does not track you across the web, does not save your searches or personal data, and the SearchScene app (based on Firefox) removes cross-site tracking cookies, social trackers, cryptominers and fingerprinters from every website you visit.

SearchScene gets its baseline search results from Microsoft Bing but has lots of unique enhancements to improve the overall search experience. It also features beautiful scenery on its homepage, hence the name SearchScene.

You can now install SearchScene on your smartphone, tablet, laptop, and desktop PC.

When SearchScene says, “Don’t Be Evil” it actually means it

SearchScene was created by our small tech company based in Exeter in the UK. The co-founders, Dr. Ciara Muldoon (a former Science Communication specialist) and Dr. Neil Williams (a former Aerospace Engineer) have spent several years building and then marketing SearchScene.

You can read more about “Why We Built SearchScene” in a previous blog post. It has been a very challenging project for our small team from Devon, trying to compete with tech titans, so we are heartened by the positive feedback that we have received from some of the thousands of people now using SearchScene.

However, we need many more people to be using SearchScene if we are to hit the growth targets set by Microsoft Bing in our 6-month trial partnership. So please try SearchScene and, if you like it and what it stands for, please recommend it to your family and friends. If people decide to make a small change and work together, there is surprising power in this kind of collective action.

Most of those who use SearchScene seem to really like it and what it stands for.

Could switching from Google to SearchScene help reduce eco-anxiety?

There are many reasons why people might consider switching from Google to SearchScene. They may want to help raise money for worthy causes, simply by doing what they do anyway but via an alternative search engine. They may want better privacy protection when they search the web. Their aim may even be to reduce their eco-anxiety.

Some 40% of those surveyed said that the climate crisis made them feel anxious. Interestingly, 29% thought that taking positive action would help them feel less anxious about the climate crisis.

This belief is consistent with some recent research findings. For example, the work of climate psychologists, Renée Lertzman in the US, and Caroline Hickman in the UK, who are both very involved with the Climate Psychology Alliance. Their research has shown that eco-anxiety can often be alleviated by first connecting with like-minded people who share the belief that such concerns are perfectly valid, then coming to terms with the feelings of grief, and eventually choosing to take some positive action, both individually and as part of a powerful collective, to put the world on a better path.

Climate cafes, where like-minded people come together to discuss their concerns, are one way to facilitate these positive changes. Switching to a charitable search engine may be another way. With this in mind, we at SearchScene are developing a Group Impact feature which lets people create groups and then see their collective impact.

Switching from Google to SearchScene, and convincing like-minded people to do the same, may be one small change that people can make in their daily lives that may be beneficial for their own mental health, as well as for the health of the living planet.

SearchScene’s homepage scenery reminds us of all that we can still save if we act now.

Visit SearchScene.com today to find out how you can search the web for free, while protecting your privacy, and still raise money for charities that are working hard to address the causes and effects of the climate crisis.

A Press Pack, with lots of additional information, is also available online.

For media and other enquiries, please feel free to reach out to us, via our Contact Us form.