Search Engine or Website Partnerships?

Feedback Ideas
1

Would Haiku benefit from making partnerships with certain search engines or websites for WebPositive?

I understand Mozilla currently has such a partner arrangement with Google, with Google paying Mozilla to be the default search engine in Mozilla Firefox. Obviously, due to Google’s notoriety and the unlikelihood of us securing a partnership with Google, we should not consider a partnership with Google.

However, there are many other privacy-focused search engines we might be able to partner up with. These include DuckDuckGo, Qwant, Ecosia, You.com, and Xayn. It is important to note that we don’t have to follow Mozilla’s example in letting the search engine pay us to be the default in WebPositive - we can first decide what is preferable and then negotiate with the search engine.

I will note that Xayn launched today as an Android and iOS app, and You.com is still in development. However, if we reach out to these search engines early, we may be able to secure some sort of partnership with them where both groups benefit - the search engine gets a place in WebPositive and we also get some attention through the search engine.

And then there are partnerships with popular sites. The web browser Vivaldi has partnerships with certain sites like Booking.com where a link to their site is placed on the New Tab Page. Booking.com then pays for the amount of users who visit their site through that link. Again, we don’t have to follow this example directly, but figure something out and then negotiate with the site.

Although the most obvious thing one thinks about with this is money, partnerships could also be publicity related (which is also good for Haiku). This could range from Haiku being put onto a list of platforms the search engine/website works with, or a more prominent call for new users on Haiku.

Obviously monetising WebPositive is always a thing which we should be extremely careful about and we have to make sure that WebPositive is not turned into a browser full of advertising, however if we make sure we only partner up with trusted, privacy-focused websites/search engines then it may be worth it.

What do you think?

2

Partnerships are a tricky things.

I’m not against it in principle, but It can easily backfire.

I remember the long lasting resentment ubuntu got from their controversial amazon partnership, a partnership they eventually terminated last year.

On the other hand, if we can find a mutually beneficial relationship with a project that shares our value, so much the better.

But getting to a consensus around that might bring dissension and prove difficult.

1 Like
3

Agreed, which is why I’m suggesting those privacy-focused search engines. Some of them are FOSS as well.

4

I don’t think there’s a generalist search engine but in this kind of things, there’s already Goodsearch (Haiku profile)
I think there’s also AmazonSmile but it’s not very handy. The search seems limited to products in US shop.