France and Germany Split to Create Competing National Search Engines

It may be impractical to start a search engine in the US with Google’s stronghold within the country, but other countries are aspiring to become national search powers, with French President Jacques Chirac’s acknowledgment that “We must take up the challenge posed by the American giants Google and Yahoo.” Initially dubbed as a “European search engine,” Germany and France are parting ways to create their own search engines. Germany will have a search engine called “Theseus,” and France’s search engine will be called “Quaero.”

The year 2007 will be interesting to follow with these competing engines, especially in light of China and Japan doing the same. Has Google already reached its peak? I’d say so.