Transparency at Ecosia
Ecosia operates openly. We publish monthly financial reports and regular updates from our tree-planting projects and partners. This way, you can see how we use our income and where your trees are being planted.
In this article:
Financial reports
Each month, we publish a financial report that shows how much money we make and how much we invest in planting trees. You can see all projects supported in that month.
Online Safety & Digital Services Statement
We are committed to complying with the UK Online Safety Act and EU Digital Services Act and seek to protect our users from illegal and harmful online content so as to provide a safe, transparent, and responsible search experience.
How we protect users
As a privacy-focused search engine, we are limited to counting users who have opted in to our analytical cookies. As of April 2025, Ecosia’s UK monthly active users number does not meet the threshold set out by Ofcom for Category 2A regulated search services. For the DSA, in the EU our estimated MAU stands at 3.4 million as of February 2024.Ecosia does not host or generate search content itself. Instead, we rely on upstream providers (such as Google and Microsoft Bing) to deliver results.
Illegal content
- We have taken all reasonable and proportionate measures to assess, reduce and design our systems to reduce the risk of harmful or illegal content appearing on our site and enable effective user reporting and content removal via our service.
- We implement measures to prevent and act on illegal content that may appear in search results, such as material related to terrorism, child sexual exploitation and abuse, and other forms of illegal activity.
- We take reports of such ads/content seriously and aim to work with upstream providers to ensure access to such content/ads are removed or blocked as quickly as possible upon detection or notification. These efforts help to reduce user exposure and minimise the availability of such content via our platform. To report ads/content or for further details, please visit our Report Content page.
Harmful content
- We are committed to protecting all users, including those under 18, from harmful content that may appear in search results. When we are made aware of harmful content violating our policies or applicable regulations, we take appropriate action. We aim to strike a balance between ensuring online safety and maintaining open access to useful information.
- While we expect and rely on our upstream providers to provide compliant results, we undertake additional efforts to reduce the likelihood of illegal or harmful content appearing in search results, this includes:
- Strict SafeSearch settings by default in the UK, filtering out content such as pornography, graphic violence, and content promoting self-harm, suicide, or eating disorders.
- Blocklists of search terms, proactive moderation and partnerships with the Samaritans in the UK, among others to signposts users to suicide prevention support - see Ecosia’s Crisis Support pages.
Contact us
If you’ve encountered harmful content via Ecosia’s services or believe we are not fulfilling our responsibilities under the UK OSA or DSA you can notify us or report ads/content via our Report Content page. You can also write to Ecosia’s legal representative for the OSA/DSA and any other regulatory authority at the following address:
- Name: Ecosia
- Address: Ecosia GmbH, Gerichtstrasse 23, 13347 Berlin, Germany
- Email: techsupport@ecosia.org
You may also find helpful support resources recommended by Ofcom if you or someone you know has experienced serious online harm.
EU ‘P2B’ Platform to Business Regulation
In compliance with the EU’s P2B Regulation (EU 2019/1150) this page sets out how our search results are structured:
- Organic links and embedded images originate from our syndication partners Microsoft Bing and Google.
- Guidance on Bing's content ranking methodology is available in their Webmaster Guidelines under the section titled "How Bing ranks your content"
- Guidance on Google's content ranking is available in their ‘Ranking results’ page, in ‘How Search Works’.
- Users can report specific links or advertisements they wish to be removed by Ecosia here.
- Sponsored links: We display sponsored links, or advertisements, from our syndication partners’ respective advertising platforms which are clearly labeled as ads. Ecosia receives no other compensation to influence our search rankings. Further information regarding how Ecosia generates revenue from ads or how to advertise on Ecosia can be found on our Help Center. We endeavor to provide a safe and fast browsing experience. For this reason, the Ecosia app has a built-in ad blocking feature that blocks intrusive or spam ads so that users only see acceptable non-intrusive ads that help us plant trees.
- Instant Responses: We add features and relevant information from specialized sources to improve our search results. The list of our current sources for instant answers and features can be found here.
Note: Ecosia does not provide any preferential treatment to its own services in our search result rankings. A full explanation of our search results can be found here.