Reconsider Yandex integration due to the geopolitical status quo

HamSesh

miicat_47 All of your queries are anonymized by Kagi before being forwarded to their various search providers. You don’t need to worry about a profile being built on you specifically by Yandex or any other search provider when using Kagi.

We are, though, providing Yandex and Russia data about the kinds of things Kagi users (mostly Americans and Europeans I’m guessing) search for, which might be worth something to them.

miicat_47

HamSesh In that case I think it's fine for me. Thanks for clarifying!

Rudotel

Indeed, Yandex is fully operated by Russian entities, on Russian ground, governed by Russian laws. I find it highly problematic as well

popsicle4478

I already cancelled my subscription due to this, as I told the support team.

This is not about censorship. I do not want to silence Russian voices. I do not want to keep Russian content out of my search results. I do not want to see any bangs related to Yandex or other Russian sources removed. I do not wish to demonize the Russian People.

I simply do not want my money going to a Russian megacorp to support the Russian war machine.

I'm an American. To get ahead of trollbot whataboutism that is rampant everywhere else: Yes, the USA has committed and continues to commit international atrocities. My government is actively supporting Israel's genocide of the Palestinian people. That is bad. I am doing what I can as an individual to stop that. But I cannot simply opt out of paying 25% of my income to my government. If you actually care about that, I would encourage you to stop supporting American businesses, including Kagi. If you don't, then don't bring it up.

popsicle4478

miicat_47 Agreed.

popsicle4478

nologic

carl

Edit: I also think it's sad that so many activists in the Kagi community choose not to make constructive suggestions. It should be: "If Kagi did this, then I think you could get more and happier customers", but instead it is: "If Kagi doesn't do as I say, I will cancel my subscription and start a boycott".

Huh?? My complaint is simply that my money is being funneled to Russian corporations. Do you have any constructive suggestions as to how I can avoid that?

carl

popsicle4478 Probably going off-grid and raising chickens if you want to guarantee that none of your hard earned dollars ever get into any Russian pockets. I won't mention other nations, since you've already determined that such is whataboutism from trollbots (why would a bot be interested in trolling, isn't that a human endeavour?).

I think it's perfectly fine that people who deem it unacceptable that Kagi uses Yandex go ahead and cancel their subscriptions. The same thing if they don't accept Kagi sourcing from Brave, Google or Apple. Each person makes her decision. Even better: Make a Yandex-free search engine to compete with Kagi.

In the growing phase, every small business will attract activists who want to form the company to their will, without investing anything or creating something themselves. That's normal, I consider it growing pains. It's totally risk-free and effort free for the activists. They see small companies as easy targets to be bullied. When/if the company grows to a bigger size, activists won't be interested anymore, because they know big companies don't listen.

Mackou

carl

there's a middle ground between living in the woods and not caring at all about where your money goes. Most people just want to make reasonable ethical choices.
The whole "build your own search engine" argument doesn't really hold up. Customers who pay for a service should be able to give feedback

Calling concerned users "activists" trying to "bully" small companies feels like a stretch.

carl

When "concerned users" coordinate a boycott of Kagi through Reddit in forums that have nothing to do with Kagi or with search engines, then they are activists. Not if they are voicing their opinion here.

If I go to your restaurant and am not satisfied with what you offer, then I'm a concerned customer. If I go on national media to urge everybody to boycott your restaurant, then I'm an activist.

There's over 30 000 people paying for Kagi. Not everybody can demand that Kagi does exactly what they personally want, because there's also 30 000 other people to consider. We have to vote with our wallets. I choose not to buy products from a ton of businesses, because I don't like what they do ethically or business-wise. To me paying for Kagi is easily a good ethical choice.

carl

HamSesh This is a question of principles, and we, as Kagi supporters and customers, are hoping Kagi can align its principles with what’s right in this case, with what’s objectively morally right — vehemently and categorically against unprovoked violence and terror against the “humans” behind their “human internet.”

You are not speaking for more people than yourself, so "We as Kagi supporters" is not the right expression. I don't speak for anybody but myself either. It seems like you feel that you can "do your part" of the fight by inflicting damage on a small company like Kagi. Glad that you've found a target that you're comfortable to attack. But know that behaviour like yours is also the reason why most companies chose to never communicate with users and the community around their product. In the end, who wins?

popsicle4478

carl You said it yourself, "We have to vote with our wallets." And yet when somebody suggests voting with their wallet, you call that bullying? Make up your mind dude.

Vlad

The job of a search engine is to produce most relevant search results. Kagi excels at this. Any good search engine remains unimpressed by world politics.

Few interesting details how Kagi works in the background:

we do not call all sources for all queries, as we are (selfishly) interested in reducing our own costs, while not reducing the quality of results. it is a delicate game to be played
kagi makes more money the less it costs us to produce the results
kagi has been using yandex search api since 2019. including yandex makes kagi results better. yandex is about 2% of our total cost, to put things into perspective and is only one of dozens sources we use to make search better and ensure if you can not find something in Kagi, you can not find it anywhere
if you look at our changelog over the last year or so you will see many new sources added, while your price as a user remained the same - meaning Kagi just keeps adding more value and makes search better
we are really obsessing about having best search in the world - without delviering on that promise and constantly being much better than competition, nobody would be paying for Kagi
we have a discussion started on showing sources and potentially allowing users to disable certain ones https://kagifeedback.org/d/252-show-source-of-results and https://kagifeedback.org/d/4727-option-to-choose-or-exclude-specific-external-indexes what makes it difficult to act on this is that kagi does not save searches as a matter of policy and including more moving parts would make debugging search quality issues next to impossible
there is very complex system behind deciding what gets pulled in for each query etc
we use something like up to 40 sources including our own indexes at this point for each query. all of that is included in your subscription and happens in split second and guarantees that if you can not find something on kagi, you can not find it anywhere.
Kagi users expect the very best search results in the world and they are very vocal about it when that is not the case. See https://kagifeedback.org/t/search-quality
any search source we consider using goes through rigorous evaluation process that considers: result quality, API availability, economic viability, result latency, legal terms, privacy terms, and technical feasibility. the moment 'politics' is a part of factors being considered for search results, is the moment I stop working on a search engine.
that does not mean that I am personally not interested in politics (I was a refugee of two wars, so yes it affected me greatly) but I keep a position that any good search engine has to remain impartial and unimpressed by world politics. world does not need yet another politicized search engine, and kagi won't become one.
also check our policy on search being search and nothing else https://help.kagi.com/kagi/search-details/search-quality.html#search-neutrality-and-information-access

For any further questions or concerns feel free to reach out to vlad@kagi.com

We set out to fix search, not the world. Thank you for your support.

laacz

Kagi has Yandex search integration behind scenes. Previous discussion

Pplease remove integration with Yandex. Do not consider making it as a opt-out or opt-in. It's just a bug and should be fixed.
As the russia's full scale invasion into Ukraine is nearing it's third anniversay, and occupation as such - eleventh, It's really sad that Kagi, as a company which builds on such great values, is indirectly financing
genocide. It does not matter if it's 2% or 0.2%.
I understand that somebody might mistakenly see this as a political issue. But it's just not that.
I'm writing this with a very heavy heart, as I'll have to quit using the service and urge everyone else to do so. I really have come to love and enjoy Kagi.

RoxyRoxyRoxy

laacz Pretty sure the original discussion was locked for a reason. I’m not going to talk politics but suffice to say it’s clear we disagree on the Ukraine issue. I’m a paying (Ultimate) subscriber too. I don’t want my search results to be poorer due to geopolitics, and Kagi’s stance on such matters is one of the main reasons I too fell in love with it. I would be equally disappointed as you are now if they actively made my search quality worse by taking a side on an issue like this.

Temanor

It is not a bug. It is a source for Kagi search results.
Also, you should not create a new issue for this. Discussion should continue in the thread you linked to.
While there may be reasons for wanting to avoid Russian companies, I still think it makes sense if Yandex offers a better experience for Kagi users.

Just because a company is based in Russia does not mean they are bad people either.

I was about to mention Jetbrains also being a Russian company, but I was wrong. Although, many of their workers are Russian and still oppose the war.

I do still see your point, and I think that if Kagi can improve their search in a reasonable way without using any Russian resources, they should do so.

[deleted]

I've been a super happy user of Kagi for a while now. Such a brilliant, user centered approach to providing a service. And, based on podcasts I've heard Vlad on, behind the product there's deep thought and understanding of how tech affects the real world. The slogan "Humanizing the web" spoke to me, and I absolutely love the idea and execution of Privacy Pass. Bonus points for being on Mastodon and Peertube. For all this, I recently switched to an annual professional sub tier.

So it was quite shocking to hear that Kagi is a partner with Russian Yandex, and subsequently some of my money goes to Russia - an oppressive regime that has been carrying out an atrocious attack on Ukraine for three years now.

I saw another thread about this topic, but felt that I must contribute to the debate as well. I do understand the mission-driven focus on building the best search engine out there, but to imply that this is somehow apolitical is simply naive, no offense. It is a choice that follows the legacy of other tech (and other) companies that have ignored their impacts of the real world for the sake of doing business - it is highly political.

I thought Kagi was a different kind of tech company. "Humanizing the web but happily contributing to dehumanization out there in the world." doesn't quite do it for me as a slogan, so for now I have to end my subscription. I was getting excited for getting Orion for Linux, so I hope the situation changes before it arrives.

Cheers ✌️