Hi Kagi team,
First of all, thank you for building such a thoughtful and privacy-focused search engine. It's a refreshing alternative in a landscape dominated by ad-driven tech giants.
However, I’d like to raise a concern that I—and many other European users—share: Kagi is currently based in the United States. While I understand this is where the company was founded, the U.S. legal framework around data privacy is increasingly seen as incompatible with the values many Europeans hold, especially when compared to the strong privacy protections enforced by the GDPR, DMA, and other EU regulations.
This suggestion entails either relocating Kagi’s operations (fully or partially) to the European Union or establishing a European legal entity and/or infrastructure (such as hosting and data processing). The goal is to bring Kagi into alignment with EU privacy regulations such as the GDPR and Digital Markets Act, and to reassure privacy-conscious users—especially in Europe—that their data is truly safe from surveillance or legal overreach from U.S. authorities.
This would not alter the user interface or core functionality of Kagi in any disruptive way. Rather, it would increase trust, potentially attract more users from the EU, and reduce hesitancy among those who are skeptical about U.S.-based services, especially with Donald Trump now back in office, which raises new concerns over surveillance, deregulation, and tech policy.
It would also help Kagi position itself as a globally trusted privacy-first search engine, not just one with a strong product, but with governance and legal infrastructure aligned with the world's strongest data protection regimes.
This isn’t a “feature” in the traditional UI/UX sense but rather a strategic infrastructure and legal change that would directly influence user trust, adoption, and long-term engagement—particularly in privacy-conscious regions like the EU.
Examples of how users would benefit:
A user based in Germany or France might currently hesitate to use Kagi because it's a U.S. company, and thus subject to U.S. laws like the CLOUD Act. If Kagi were registered or hosted in Europe, these users would feel more secure that their data is protected under EU laws.
Privacy-focused users and organizations (such as journalists, lawyers, researchers, or activists) would be more likely to recommend Kagi if it were demonstrably outside of U.S. legal jurisdiction.
Government institutions, educational organizations, or privacy NGOs in the EU may be more inclined to use or promote Kagi if it’s EU-compliant at a legal and infrastructural level.
