Europe's Parliament Switches to a New Search Engine to Keep Data Private

The European Parliament has stopped using Google and switched to a search engine called Qwant on its staff computers. The move is part of a larger effort by Europe to reduce its dependence on American tech companies and protect the personal data of its institutions. The change was announced to parliamentary staff.

Officials said they made the switch for two main reasons: to keep European control over digital services, and to protect privacy. It comes as Europe has been passing tough new rules for big tech companies.

What Is Qwant?

Qwant is a search engine built in France that started in 2013. It sells itself as a privacy-focused option compared to Google. The key difference: Qwant says it does not track what people search for or build detailed profiles of users to sell to advertisers.

Google works differently. When you search on Google, that search gets recorded and added to a profile about you. Advertisers can then use that profile to target ads your way—even if Google does not attach your name to it.

For a place like the European Parliament, where staff handle sensitive government documents and private communications, which search engine they use matters. If parliamentary staff use Google for their work searches, those searches become part of Google's vast user profiles. This raises concerns about who has access to that data and what it could be used for.

Switching the default search engine on computers is straightforward from a technical standpoint. It means changing a few settings in web browsers and IT systems. But the real impact depends on what people actually do. Many people bypass the default and go straight to Google.com, so the change may not affect everyone equally.

Europe Has Done This Before

The European Union has a decade-long track record of pushing back against American tech companies. In 2014, the European Parliament called on Google to separate its search engine from its other business operations—a move that was symbolic but signaled real concern about one company having too much power in digital services.

Around the same time, Parliament supported measures to grow European technology companies instead of relying so heavily on American ones.

This pattern goes back further. In the 1990s and 2000s, European governments pushed for open technical standards in telephones and internet networks to prevent any single company from locking everyone into its system. The same thinking is now being applied to internet search and other digital services. If one company controls too much, it can be difficult or impossible to switch away from it.

Since then, Europe has passed major laws to regulate tech companies, most notably the AI Act, which sets rules for artificial intelligence systems. The Qwant switch shows that the Parliament is not just writing rules for other companies—it is also changing its own operations to match the values those rules are meant to protect.

The Practical Challenge

Here is the honest part: Qwant does not search as well as Google in many situations.

Google has spent decades building the best search index in the world and training its systems to understand what people are really asking for. It excels at finding exactly what you want, especially for recent news, rare information, or highly specialized topics. Qwant is improving, but it is not there yet.

Google has also been adding artificial intelligence to search in new ways—using language models to understand questions better and give more helpful answers, not just links. European search engines are working on similar features, but they start with less data and smaller budgets, so they are behind.

The broader point here is that switching to a European alternative means accepting some trade-offs. Parliament staff may find it takes slightly longer to find what they need for some searches, or results may be less precise. Whether that is acceptable depends on how important privacy and European control are compared to perfect search results.

Why Europe Is Pushing This

Europe is working on a bigger project: reducing its dependence on American technology for essential services. This includes semiconductors, cloud computing, data storage, and artificial intelligence. The thinking is straightforward: if Europe relies too heavily on non-European companies for critical technology, it loses control over its own digital systems.

There are practical concerns. If a company goes offline, Europe cannot easily switch to something else. If there is a dispute between countries, one side could potentially cut off the other's access to important services. And if the digital tools that Europe uses are designed by companies in another country, those tools may reflect that country's values and priorities, not Europe's.

This is a real tension. European alternatives are often better at privacy and fairness, but they may not work as well as established global platforms. Europe has to choose between having the very best technology and having more control and privacy. It cannot always have both.

The Parliament itself is important to this story. It wrote the AI Act and is shaping how Europe regulates technology companies. So when Parliament uses a European search engine instead of Google, it puts its own money and effort where its rules are pointing. It shows that the institution believes in what it is asking others to do.

Whether this switch actually works depends on what happens next. If parliamentary staff adapt to Qwant without major problems, other European government agencies may follow. If Qwant turns out to be frustrating or too slow, it could slow down the broader European push for independent technology options.