Source?
Comment on Kagi search engine now has a Fediverse search option.
MoonlightFox@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Obligatory mention that Kagi also use the Russian search index Yandex. This aids the Russian economy and the Russian war effort.
clove@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 weeks ago
TheFogan@programming.dev 5 weeks ago
Best I can find links a sweedish page on the topic
fedia.io/m/privacy@lemmy.ml/t/1334785
It’s kind of odd I can’t find more sources which does make me a bit skeptical
noodlejetski@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
and Brave, too.
ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 5 weeks ago
When does anti Russian gov aggression just become racism? Does using Google aid the war in Palestine?
MoonlightFox@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
I see your point, but I think there is a meaningful difference.
Russia started a war with a peaceful nation. It is in no way, shape or form a provoked war.
There are a couple of ways you can react to hurt the agressor. With the goal of making them stop hurting the innocent. Military action is one, economic is another.
Most European countries have decided to hurt them economically. As a European I agree with this, and fully support it. I try my best not to support the Russian economy. If Russia as a country changes in the future, my view will probably change as well. This is a war that Putin started.
That said, I believe the support from the US to Israel was wrong. The US has been supporting genocide. One could argue that supporting the US economy supports these sorts of actions as well. However, the scale is important and how much involvement is important.
If you had mentioned an Israeli company, I would agree 100%. The difference is that the US have not been spending 1/4 to 1/3 of their entire fiscal budget fighting a peaceful democratic nation as the agressor.
Anyways, at this point I am kinda mad at the US for being a unreliable partner and going to trade war with Europe and bailing in their responsibilities when it comes to the war in Ukraine and creating uncertajnty within NATO, threatening nations etc, anyways. So not spending a lot of money on US goods and services at the moment either no.
sudneo@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
Technically you could extend that reasoning to plenty of EU countries that also send aid to Israel (e.g., Germany, where Hetzner is located, or tuta, etc.).
At some point one has to make compromises, and everyone can place the line where they wish. Considering 1000 searches per month, the price is going to be between $0.20 and $3.84 (synchronous). So let’s say $2, which is probably an order of magnitude more than the real cost. Of that 2$, the margin is maybe 1$? That 1$ becomes profit for some Kazakh company, which ultimately means $0.2 in taxes. If this was in Russia, that would be $0.018 to the federal government, but let’s say that it doesn’t matter. Of that, 40% goes in weapons, making it $0.08/month. In 1 year, that’s $0.96.
Now, as I said I wouldn’t be surprised if this was an overestimation of 10x or more, it also assumes that absolutely nothing goes to Kazakh government, which is fully used to bypass sanctions, and a 50% margin for the company. It also assumes 1000 searches (the average was around 300 if I recall correctly) and that yandex is used for each one of them.
Every cent count, absolutely, but it’s objectively such a tiny amount that a one-time donation to UA army or some humanitarian relief org will offset you for like 15 years.
MoonlightFox@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
I totally agree that it is a miniscule amount. I try to prioritize more effective actions for other causes I care about, but personally am uncomfortable with any compromises with Russia at the moment. Luckily it’s basically close to zero products and services that are Russian, so it’s easy to avoid. So everytime I come across something Russian, I just avoid it. Kagi is one of the really rare times.
There’s also non-economic reasons to avoid a Russian index considering their reputation with misinformation campaigns. Even a slight nudge in the direction of Russian positive propaganda is damaging. But this was not my initial argument.
There is also the information gathering aspect, knowing what people search for (even if anonymous) is valuable.
douglasg14b@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Every single time with red comes up there’s always this FUD.
Why?
MoonlightFox@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
I have been sick a lot lately, so have had a lot of time on my hands. I don’t have a search for Kagi or something. I wanted to use Kagi though, so I was disappointed when I realized that they want to continue this practice.
What are you implying with it being suspicious? In what way?
**If Kagi pays a Russian company for a service, that company pays taxes to the Russian government.
Russia spends 32% of its budget on the Russian military. So for every dollar they get in taxes, one third is spent on the Russian military.
With a corporate tax rate of 20% that means 6.4% of Yandex profits go to the military. Since Kagi is mainly a paid service, I don’t want my money to go to the Russian military, and I guess a lot of other people don’t want this either**.
reuters.com/…/russia-hikes-national-defence-spend…
The Russian people are not to blame, and I am sure a lot of great people work at Yandex and at different companies in Russia. That said, Russia chose to attack a peaceful democratic country, they are currently sanctioned by a lot of western countries in hopes that it will pressure their economy enough to force them to stop the war.
There isn’t much we can do to stop the conflict besides hurting them economically and supporting Ukraine. If we continue to use Russian products and services then that does not work. Unfortunately this affects everyone in Russia.
witnessbolt@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
Thank you
skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl 5 weeks ago
Paying Yandex is a deal breaker for me. As much as Yandex may want to be independent, they cannot be because of the country they’re based in. With the way things are going, the same may be true of Google and Kagi itself somewhere within the next four years.
Kagi defends itself by saying it’s “only used 2% of the time” which would make a better argument that turning off the feature to distance themselves from Russia has little impact than a defence for working with them. There’s also the “but we’ve always done it like this” defence and something about “providing the best results” but neither are great arguments.
sudneo@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
But yandex is useful for those who search in Russian. The low utilization probably comes from a mostly US/EU customer base, but when it is used, it is useful. I would disagree with disabling it. The best would be letting people decide what back ends to use, but that requires a whole rewrite of the search logic on their side, so it’s not happening any time soon…
BTW in EU we still use a lot of gas and oil from Russia, so it’s quite difficult to avoid giving them money (especially because we don’t know where energy came from for every product we buy).
skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl 5 weeks ago
Doing continuing business with Yandex at all is bad enough for me. I’m having enough trouble cutting off Russia-supporting products and services already, I’m not taking on new ones if I can avoid it.
Kagi is a great concept for a search engine, but looking at the forum posts by their CEO, their priorities clearly won’t ever align with mine. I hope they get similar competition as Google crumbles further and further, because their business model is how search engines should be making money.