Believe it or not, there are still would-be Google challengers in Europe. One is Qwant, a French startup that says its search engine doesn't track users or filter search results. Earlier this year, when Chief Executive Officer Eric Leandri pitched phone makers on shipping their devices with his search engine installed on them, "the answer at that time was 'zero chances,'" he says. Following a swell of interest this summer, he's been working on a deal to install Qwant on the phones of one big brand, which he declined to name, that turned him downin March. "Something has changed," Leandri says. That something is the European Union's antitrust landscape. The EU's $5 billion July ruling against Google's Android operating system also demanded changes to reduce the company's self-promotion on Android devices, and it's giving rival search engines and web browsers a rare chance to compete. Although Google appealed the ruling on Oct. 9, a day before its deadline-and has been so dominant for so long that Europe has few companies capable of mounting a credible offen-sive-this is the best chance they've had in many years. Google didn't respond to requests for comment for this story.
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