• FrozenFlame@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      It’s great that the option exists for those that don’t care about their digital footprint and also want to just passively contribute without “spending” a cent. Not for everyone for sure.

    • Bolt@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I was under the impression that they anonymized your search results within a week. How is that sacrificing privacy?

      • backpackn@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        You’re right, your IP is anonymized after 1 week. Their privacy policy seems great to me. I just turn off uBlock origin for Ecosia and don’t mind quickly scrolling past a couple of ads at the top of results.

        It’s my firefox default search and I rack up a ton of trees for doing many quick and basic searches. If I ever need a more complex search, I use a different site. It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing commitment.

        • NicoCharrua@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          https://ecosia.helpscoutdocs.com/article/33-how-does-ecosia-make-money

          Ecosia only gets money from ads if you click on a link, so if you quickly scroll past them all the time you might as well leave uBO on.

          They also said you shouldn’t just click on ads randomly, it won’t help.

          They say

          What if I never click on ads?

          That’s fine, every additional user makes Ecosia more attractive to advertisers. The best way to support our mission is to use Ecosia like you would use any other search engine.

          Don’t be concerned if you rarely click on ads, simply by being an Ecosia user you’re adding to the size of our user base and turning an everyday action into something positive. The more people collectively that use Ecosia means we have a wider reach and ultimately can plant more trees.

          • backpackn@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Their answers there do make it sound like clicks are necessary, but it’s my understanding that each search query also has a fixed rate. Advertisers pay for both clicks and impressions. That’s why everyone gets a tree counter that goes up for just searching. Granted it’s a very small earning for impressions, which is why it takes ~50 searches for a single tree.