Startpage.com

Startpage is a web search engine that highlights privacy as its distinguishing feature.[2][3][4] Previously, it was known as the metasearch engine Ixquick,[5] At that time, Startpage was a variant service. Both sites were merged in 2016.

Startpage
Type of site
Search engine
Proxy service
Available inMultilingual
HeadquartersWilhemina van Pruisenweg 104, The Hague, the Netherlands
OwnerStartpage BV
ParentPrivacy One Group
URLstartpage.com
Alexa rank 1,727 (14 May 2019)[1]
Launched1998 (1998) (as Ixquick)

Ixquick was founded by David Bodnick in 1998 and has been owned by Startpage B.V., based in the Netherlands, since acquiring the internet company in 2000.[6] Ixquick and its sibling project, Startpage.com, reached their latest record (28-day average) daily direct queries of 5.7 million on 2 February 2015.[7] After that, Startpage BV was acquired by the Privacy One Group.

The company also provides the stand-alone proxy service, Startpage.com Proxy, which is incorporated into the Startpage search engine. It allows users the option to open all search results via proxy. The company also has developed a privacy-protecting email service, called StartMail.[8] This service was released to the public in 2014.[9]

History
Ixquick's logo
Ixquick website in 2001

Ixquick was created in 1998 by David Bodnick in New York City. He is a graduate of Brown University.[10] It later received the tagline "Most powerful meta search engine on the web!".[11] Initially, it provided metasearch for 14 different web and directory search engines as well as images, news, and MP3 engines.[12] Results were sorted after evaluating how relevant each of the search tools found the query.[13] Ixquick was given the highest ratings for a search engine by Search Engine Watch and ZDNet's SearchIQ.

The site received a facelift in 2000, with a dark-blue theme incorporating the planet Earth, with the tagline "the world's most powerful metasearch engine!".[14] The Dutch company, Surfboard Holding BV, based in Zeist, purchased Ixquick in 2000 (it would change its name to Startpage BV in 2013).[15]

Ixquick was re-launched on 23 March 2005 with new features including a redesigned metasearch algorithm, an international telephone and lowest-price directory.[16]

On 27 June 2006, following criticism of Google Shopping, Ixquick.com began to delete private details of its users.[17] IP addresses and other personal information were deleted within 48 hours of a search.[18] Ixquick has stated that it does not share the personal information of users with other search engines or with the provider of its sponsored results.[19][20]

Ixquick was awarded the first European Privacy Seal (EuroPriSe) for its privacy practices on 14 July 2008.[2][3][21] This European Union-sponsored initiative guarantees compliance with EU laws and regulations on data security and privacy through a series of design and technical audits.[22] It was re-certified together with Startpage in 2009, 2011, 2013,[23] and 2015.[24]

On 28 January 2009, Ixquick completely ended the recording of user IP addresses.[25][26]

Startpage website in 2011
Former Startpage logo, until 2018

On 7 July 2009, Ixquick launched Startpage.com to offer its service at a URL that is both easier to remember and spell. In contrast to Ixquick.eu, Startpage.com fetches results from the Google search engine.[27] This is done without saving user IP addresses or giving any personal user information to Google's servers.

On 29 March 2016, Ixquick.com was officially "merged" with the same company's Startpage search engine [28] (a search engine with the privacy features of Ixquick, but using only Google search results).[29] Now, users entering Ixquick.com are automatically re-routed to Startpage.com. Ixquick had long declared on its sites that it operated in compliance with European Union privacy standards and it retained its original European search engine, Ixquick.eu,[4] until about April 2018 when it was also redirected to Startpage.com.

Prior to the release of Tor Browser version 4.5, Startpage.com was its default search engine.[30]

In October 2019, Startpage BV was acquired by the Privacy One Group, owned by adtech company System1,[31][32][33] leading to privacy concerns.[34] Many of those concerns were alleviated by May 2020.[35]

Search mechanism and interface

While Ixquick aggregated results from multiple search engines, Startpage exclusively uses results from Google, which the company pays Google for.[36] Startpage can search in 17 languages: Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.

References
  1. "Startpage.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 14 May 2019.
  2. EuroPriSe press release, "First European Privacy Seal Awarded", July 14, 2008, EuroPriSe consortium, via Business Wire / Google, Kiel, Germany, retrieved April 5, 2016.
  3. Privacy.org news article, "EU Awards First Privacy Seal to Online Search Engine Ixquick.com", July 14, 2008, EPIC - Electronic Privacy Information Center / Privacy International, Washington, D.C., retrieved April 5, 2016.
  4. ExpressVPN.com, "Free Search Engines: What You're Looking For?", 19 January 2015, retrieved April 5, 2016.
  5. "Ixquick Search". www.metamend.com.
  6. "New Ixquick International Search Engine Unveiled" www.hventure.nl. March 23, 2005.
  7. "Ixquick/StartPage Direct queries per day (28 Day Average)". Retrieved March 20, 2015.
  8. "When is your StartMail private email service going to be released? - Startpage Support". 2013-07-23. Retrieved 2013-08-07.
  9. "StartMail Launches "Email Encryption Made Easy" at pii2014 Conference". Startpage. Retrieved 24 October 2017.
  10. "IXQuick.com Q & A With David Bodnick & Alex van Eesteren". www.marketingshift.com. Retrieved 22 January 2019.
  11. "Ixquick Metasearch". web.archive.org. 28 November 1999. Retrieved 22 January 2019.
  12. Bradley, Phil (22 January 2019). "Search Engines: 'Ixquick', a Multi-Search Engine With a Difference". Ariadne (23). Retrieved 22 January 2019 – via www.ariadne.ac.uk.
  13. "Computer Shopper (November 2000)". 1 November 2000. Retrieved 22 January 2019 – via Internet Archive.
  14. "Ixquick Metasearch". web.archive.org. 28 June 2003. Retrieved 22 January 2019.
  15. drimble.nl. "Startpage". drimble.nl. Retrieved 22 January 2019.
  16. "IXQuick.com Q & A With David Bodnick & Alex van Eesteren". www.marketingshift.com. 23 March 2005.
  17. "Ixquick.com Eliminates 'Big Brother'". biz.yahoo.com. 27 June 2006.
  18. "http://ixquick.com/eng/protect_privacy_qa.html Privacy Q&A"
  19. Greenberg, Andy (February 15, 2008). "The Privacy Paradox". Forbes.com. Retrieved 2009-09-12.
  20. "Ixquick: Privacy Policy"
  21. "First European Privacy Seal Awarded" (Press release). Ixquick. 14 July 2008.
  22. "About Europrise. Archived 2011-07-20 at the Wayback Machine"
  23. "Register of Awarded Seals". EuroPrise. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
  24. Ixquick.eu press release, "EuroPriSe: Privacy-friendly Internet search with Ixquick and Startpage reaffirmed", 20 July 2015, Surfboard Holding B.V., Bonn, Germany, on Ixquick.eu website, retrieved 5 April 2016.
  25. Albrecht, Katherine (28 January 2009). "Privacy-friendly search engine Ixquick.com completely stops recording IP addresses". Ixquick press release. Retrieved 2010-06-21.
  26. Rodriguez, Sarah (1 May 2009). "Search engines besides Google? Who knew?". Special to Wisconsin Law Journal. Wisconsin Law Journal. Retrieved 2013-07-11.
  27. "What is the difference between StartPage and Ixquick? - StartPage Support Center". Support.startpage.com. Archived from the original on 8 February 2016. Retrieved 2014-04-09.
  28. "We've streamlined the fight against Big Brother!". Ixquick.com. 30 March 2016. Archived from the original on 16 April 2016. Retrieved 5 April 2016.
  29. Ixquick.eu press release, "StartPage and Ixquick Join Forces in the Fight Against Big Brother", 30 March 2016, Surfboard Holding B.V., Zeist, The Netherlands, on Ixquick.eu website, retrieved 5 April 2016.
  30. "Tor Browser 4.5 is released". blog.torproject.org. Retrieved 2015-09-16.
  31. "Privacy search engine StartPage has sold to ad tech company System1". Reclaim The Net. 2019-10-28. Retrieved 2020-01-19.
  32. "Ties Binding Verizon To System1's Startpage Privacy Search Engine". www.mediapost.com. Retrieved 2020-01-19.
  33. Brinkmann, Martin. "Waterfox web browser sold to System1". ghacks.net. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  34. "Delisting Startpage.com". PrivacyTools. 2019-11-12. Retrieved 2020-01-19.
  35. "Relisting Startpage.com". PrivacyTools. 2020-05-03. Retrieved 2020-05-11.
  36. Startpage B.V. "StartPage". www.startpage.com. Archived from the original on 31 January 2019. Retrieved 3 February 2019. You can’t beat Google when it comes to online search. So we’re paying them to use their brilliant search results in order to remove all trackers and logs. The result: The world’s best and most private search engine. Only now you can search without ads following you around, recommending products you’ve already bought. And no more data mining by companies with dubious intentions. We want you to dance like nobody’s watching and search like nobody’s watching.
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