Did some digging and found this Tweet-
Some of you have reported difficulties using Qwant in several countries around the world. It is a difficult decision but we have decided to close access to our services in certain countries where we don’t believe to provide the expected quality of service. Our apologies for this.
5:04 AM · Dec 16, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
https://twitter.com/QwantCom/status/1339149434572206080
Apparently, they are blocking countries that don't speak French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Portuguese, Catalan, Corsican, Breton or Basque according to a French website I found. This is a rough translation but doesn't really explain WHY it's blocking them.
Qwant says it remains fully accessible in more than 30 countries and available in 10 different languages. The languages supported by the interface are French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Portuguese, Catalan, Corsican, Breton and Basque. French and the four regional languages also serve as the language of research results.
This could be due to fees they pay MIcrosoft/Bing to provide results to search terms when Qwant can't produce meaningful results from its own databases. The costs paid may not make business sense because they're not harvesting data like Google to compensate for the expenses.
Did some digging and found this Tweet-
Some of you have reported difficulties using Qwant in several countries around the world. It is a difficult decision but we have decided to close access to our services in certain countries where we don’t believe to provide the expected quality of service. Our apologies for this.
5:04 AM · Dec 16, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
https://twitter.com/QwantCom/status/1339149434572206080
Apparently, they are blocking countries that don't speak French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Portuguese, Catalan, Corsican, Breton or Basque according to a French website I found. This is a rough translation but doesn't really explain WHY it's blocking them.
Qwant says it remains fully accessible in more than 30 countries and available in 10 different languages. The languages supported by the interface are French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Portuguese, Catalan, Corsican, Breton and Basque. French and the four regional languages also serve as the language of research results.
It's possible they've blocked certain countries simply to make it easier to comply with the EU's strict data laws which have been put into place recently. Think GDPR 2.0.