How Ecosia Protects Your Privacy

Ecosia’s Privacy Policy explains in full how we handle your data and is our legal source of truth.

This page gives quick answers to the most common privacy questions about Ecosia Search and links you to more detailed articles when needed.

For complete, up‑to‑date information, please always refer to our Privacy Policy.

In this article: 

What data does Ecosia collect when I search?

We collect only what we need to run Ecosia Search, keep it secure, and improve it. This typically includes:

  • Your search terms
  • Your IP address (for a limited time)
  • Basic technical information such as browser type, language, and approximate region (e.g. country)

We do not buy additional data about you from data brokers.

For a full and legally binding description of the data we collect, the purposes, and legal bases, please see our Privacy Policy.

Do you sell or share my data?

We do not sell your personal data.

We share certain data with trusted partners only when it is needed to:

  • Provide search results and ads
  • Protect our services from fraud, abuse, and technical attacks
  • Operate and improve Ecosia

This includes our search partners and some service providers (for example, for hosting or security), who are bound by strict agreements.

For more detail about which data is shared, with which partners, and on what legal basis, please refer to our Privacy Policy.

What happens to my IP address?

An IP address, short for Internet Protocol address, is a unique numerical address for your computer that identifies your device when using the internet. 

Like every website, Ecosia receives your IP address when you use our services. We need it to:

  • Send search results and content to your device
  • Detect and prevent fraud, spam, and abuse
  • Derive an approximate location (such as your country) to provide more relevant results and ads

Internally, we anonymize your IP address after a maximum of 7 days. Microsoft will anonymize your IP address after 6 months, and if you consent to receive Google search results, your IP address will be anonymized after 9 months. For more information on how our search partners handle your data, please see their privacy statements linked below:

For the full legal information on IP address processing, please also see our Privacy Policy.

Who provides Ecosia’s search results and ads?

Ecosia works with established search partners to provide search results and ads. These include:

  • Microsoft Bing – provides search results and ads on Ecosia.
  • Google – may provide some search results and ads depending on your region and browser, and  only if you give consent.
  • EUSP - provides search results

These partners receive only the data that is necessary to provide search results, show ads, and protect their and our services from abuse (for example, your search query and IP address).

For more information about how our partners handle data, please see our Privacy Policy and the privacy statements of our partners, which are linked from there.

You can find more information on our search providers here.

Can I see, change, or delete my data?

Yes. Under GDPR and similar data protection laws, you have several rights, which typically include:

  • Access to your personal data
  • Correction of inaccurate data
  • Deletion of data in certain circumstances
  • Restriction or objection to certain processing
  • Withdrawal of consent where processing is based on consent

You can find out how to exercise these rights here:  Your GDPR rights and how to use them

In case you would like to remove personal information you’ve found on Ecosia results, you can directly send a removal request to our respective providers to take them down. You can find more information in the article: Content and ad removal requests

Where can I read the full legal details?

This FAQ is meant to be simple and practical. For full legal information about how we collect, use, share, and protect your data, as well as your rights and how to exercise them, please read:

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