Privacy Protected German Search Engine MetaGer.net Now Free Software

HANNOVER, Germany, August 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

MetaGer, Germany's most popular meta search engine for the internet, has made its source code public, allowing its user community not only to verify its data protection and security features but also to contribute to MetaGer's future developments.

Run by German NGO 'SUMA-EV - Association for Free Access to Knowledge', MetaGer originally evolved from the Leibniz University of Hannover, its software has been placed under GNU AFFERO GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE (GNU AGPL v3) as defined here: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Affero_General_Public_License and

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0

MetaGer's source code has been placed in its entirety in a public repository located at: https://gitlab.metager3.de/open-source/MetaGer. The only elements missing from the code are authentication details relating to MetaGer's meta-crawled sources search engines as these are subject to non-disclosure agreements.

"MetaGer is all about protecting the privacy of its users. By offering open-source access to its source code, the online community can now verify for itself that MetaGer does not store any data about its users", says MetaGer director Dr. Wolfgang Sander-Beuermann.

Offered in the German (http://metager.de) and English language (http://metager.net), MetaGer treats searches submitted by its users 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 (http://www.onenewspage.com/) being a recent addition. The search engine does not collect private data and the servers are located exclusively in Germany. They are fully covered under Germany's data protection laws, which are considered to be the strictest worldwide. MetaGer is recommended as the first choice for a search engine by the German "Foundation for the Protection of Privacy" (http://stiftungdatenschutz.org/praxistipps/), which was founded by the Federal Republic of Germany.

Media Contact:
MetaGer-Team
SUMA-EV Secretariat:
Röselerstr. 3, D-30159 Hannover
Germany
Tel: 0049-(0)511-34000070
e-mail: office@suma-ev.de

Managing Director and Member of the Board:
Dr. Wolfgang Sander-Beuermann
Röselerstr. 3, D-30159 Hannover
Germany
Tel: 0049-(0)511-34000071
e-mail: wsb@suma-ev.de

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