PSA: The Kagi search engine directly funds Yandex –- and refuses to stop

I thought most of the Yandex office and engineers moved out of Russia before the ban or sanctions. Effectively Yandex is no longer a Russian entity ?

And does Kagi pay Yandex to use their image search ? If not does it / would it still matter?

Yandex has been used in Kagi for years, and this was even posted about previously. I guess the knowledge faded into obscurity, and new people just weren’t aware of it. I think Yandex is a decent search engine at times—at least it finds results that others don’t—so I can see why Kagi would use it to enhance their results.

People seem pissed in that Reddit thread, kind of shocking for them to take such a big risk and say “we don’t discriminate based on geopolitical issues”. Yandex is clearly not an independent startup in Russia.

Reaffirms my sub. Happy they arent bowing to hypocritical western clowns.

This is really disappointing.

Vlad, it’s not a “geopolitical issue.” You’re directly funding—even a small amount—the extermination of the Ukrainian people. Please stop.

— A family plan ultimate subscriber

I see Vlad's point but this is a very bad look. Territory war/ethnic cleansing != geopolitical issues. They need to drop Yandex. I, too, am reconsidering my subscription.

If those Yandex engineers should want to come to America, Silicon Valley would be happy to take them and ignore any previous affiliation as long there's money to be made.