German Search Engine MetaGer With Protected Privacy Now Available in English Language

LONDON, September 18, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

MetaGer, Germany's Most Popular Meta Search Engine, Launches English-language Version at Metager.Net

Edward Snowden, a contract employee at the National Security Agency (NSA), made headlines after highlighting the very active nature of the US 'Patriot Act': It grants US authorities unrestricted access to US internet servers. Although its existence has been publicly known since the adoption of the Patriot Act in 2001 [1], the extend of its use had not fully been recognised until Snowden brought it to light and illustrated the implications of the US government's extensive cyber surveillance program.

Following Snowden's public release, a number of online search engines were quick to clarify that their systems did not store users' IP addresses, in an attempt to highlight the safe and user data protecting nature of their services.  However, despite their statements being true, most of the companies host at least part of their servers in the US, meaning that they are liable to the Patriot Act and US law, and so at the hands of US authorities. Consequently, no such protected privacy can be offered.

All of this has driven us to implement an English-language version of the most popular German meta search engine 'MetaGer', which evolved from the Leibniz University of Hannover:

metager.net

Others just talk - we act!

MetaGer is non-commercial, run by the German NGO 'SUMA-EV - Association for Free Access to Knowledge' [2].  It relies little on advertising as a source of income, instead being financed largely by donations and SUMA-EV membership fees.

In MetaGer fashion, searches carried out at metager.net are treated as anonymous from an early stage; IP addresses are neither recorded nor stored, and information is not passed on to other search engines. Cooperations have been established with most of the global Internet search engines, with news search provided by internet news portal One News Page [3] being the latest addition. MetaGer does not operate any servers outside of Germany and so falls exclusively under the infamously tough German data protection laws. MetaGer is recommended as the first choice for a search engine by the German "Foundation for the Protection of Privacy" [4], which was founded by the Federal Republic of Germany.

About SUMA-EV

SUMA is an abbreviation of the German word for search engine (SUchMAschine).  SUMA-EV is a registered non-profit association and has been committed to the free access to knowledge since 2004: uncensored, unfiltered, and without commercial or government control.  Among other services, SUMA-EV operates the most popular German meta search engine 'MetaGer' and promotes alternatives to the global businesses.  Since 2007 SUMA-EV has hosted the SUMA Awards, at which projects that are judged to be outstanding for the future of digital knowledge are acknowledged.

Links:

http://metager.net
http://metager.de
http://suma-ev.de
http://suma-awards.de 

Sources:

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_PATRIOT_Act
[2] http://suma-ev.de/en/index.html
[3] http://www.onenewspage.com/
[4] http://stiftungdatenschutz.org/praxistipps/

Media contact:

MetaGer-Team
SUMA-EV Secretariat:
Röselerstr. 3, D-30159 Hannover
Germany
Tel: +49-(0)511-34000070
e-mail: [email protected]

Managing Director and member of the Board:
Dr. Wolfgang Sander-Beuermann
Röselerstr. 3, D-30159 Hannover
Germany
Tel: +49-(0)511-34000071
e-mail: [email protected]

SOURCE One News Page and MetaGer