Comment on Ecosia plants 200 million trees

nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• Star@sopuli.xyz ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  they don’t “plant trees” but rather contribute very little amounts to existing programmes Ofcourse they don’t plant trees themselves, it’s a search engine with a small team. They donate their entire profit which averages upwards of a million euros every month, to local tree planting initiatives across the world and that isn’t a ‘little’ number at all.

  “Every search plants a tree” is a lie. It’s not every search, but rather every couple clicks on an ad I agree, they were ‘a bit’ misleading with that in the past. Although they did state in their tree counter earlier and somewhere in their website/blog that it was roughly 45 searches (in Germany, depends on region) which raised enough money to plant a tree. They’ve since removed most, if not all of the misinformation.

  They use Bing results making them useless Since when does using Bing results make a search engine a ‘scam’? DuckDuckGo also uses Bing results, would you call that a scam as well? Ecosia uses Bing search results because it’s close to impossible to make an independent search engine which gives satisfactory results without the resources of a tech giant.

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  • ultratiem@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    to local tree planting initiatives across the world

    Pick a lane. It can’t be both. Either they donate to local initiatives or global ones. Pick one.

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    • ClockworkOtter@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I think local initiatives around the world would mean initiatives around the world which are specifically local, rather than large, multinational planting organisations.

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• joelimgu@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  But they are pretty clear about that. Also, how is that worse than Google or bing? It’s not a dream sure, but its a lot better than your money going to Google

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  • nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    they are not “clear about that”. I can see they removed it now but for the longest time the main page had a banner saying “every search plants a tree” and also an actual counter which went up by one every time you made a search – which was misleading, because it wasn’t every “search”, because you would have to click on an ad, and it wasn’t “every”, because it took several clicks on an ad to actually contribute an equivalent of a tree

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    • Cuttlefish1111@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      How many trees did you plant?

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• _edge@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Does not sound like a scam.

  The build a website, with ads, and donate the revenue.

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  • nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It is a scam if you make claims that “every search plants a tree”

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    • LemonLord@endlesstalk.org ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      But this they don’t say on their website. You have to search a lot of more for a tree.

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      • nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        They removed it now

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    • Cuttlefish1111@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      How many trees have you planted?

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      • nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        If fruit trees count then around 50, why?

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• YungOnions@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I’d rather ‘little contribution’ than none at all. I’d rather ‘every couple of clicks’ than none at all. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than the major alternatives.

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  • nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    clicks on ads

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    • Cuttlefish1111@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      You’ve helped humanity so much more, so let’s shot on them.

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• Sniatch@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Can I ask what search engine you would recommend that is not some kind of misleading or a scam

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  • nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Qwant?

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    • Cuttlefish1111@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      What have you done?

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• vodkasolution@feddit.it ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I think your second and third point are well known or at least easily conceivable, but where did you get your first point from? Plain curiosity

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  • nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    their own blog

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    • Cuttlefish1111@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      How many have you planted?

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• Cuttlefish1111@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  What’s your contribution?

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