A Singapore-headquartered technology company, has announced the global launch of Boogle, a censorship-free search engine, the world’s first built by its user community and operated entirely on blockchain, following a two-year development process and a successful test run of its beta version platform among its initial subscriber base.

Built on a hybrid blockchain, Boogle is a decentralised global search engine that stores all ranking and search data on the blockchain, and cumulatively builds a search ranking system ‘democratically’ from the search results across all its users.

Created as an answer to the current issue of internet giants controlling data ownership and infringing on personal data privacy, Boogle, being hosted on a blockchain platform, is not subject to monopolistic control or jurisdictional restrictions on content and will be the world’s first free, open and autonomous search engine. It claims to be one of the first few search engines to achieve net neutrality in which there is no discrimination by internet protocol, IP address, peer groups, or internet service providers.

Boogle hopes to revolutionise the experience of conducting searches in which users will be rewarded with BOO tokens, Boogle’s own cryptocurrency, for every search. All websites are searchable unless voted off by users through the keyword filtering process and it applies a 40%-and-above consensus rule to the filtering. Boogle also operates a unique and cost-efficient advertising model with a ‘Burn-per-click’ concept in which users earn BOO tokens from advertisers when they click onto their advertisements.

Boogle’s co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Mr Patrick Lee says, “The Internet should be a free and open space where we can get unfiltered access to information. However, Internet giants have a disproportionate amount of control over content and our personal data have been mined for profits, without our permission. Boogle is a response to these problems, and it seeks to create search engine built on a decentralised platform like blockchain which is secure, network-neutral and free from monopoly by any Internet organization or central authority. We are proud to be the first in the world to be offering this.”

Boogle is largely self-financed with an initial investment of close to S$4 million. It is also in talks with several global banks and financial institutions including China Minsheng Bank Corp., Ltd., a fintech fund, as well as certain private banking entities.

Since the rollout of Boogle’s alpha version 2018 and subsequently the beta version, it has amassed over a million subscribers from its key markets of Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and South Korea. It has also gained subscribers from Vietnam, the Philippines, Cambodia, Mexico, Spain, Kenya and Russia. Over the last two years, the Boogle team has met with relevant government authorities in each market to obtain approvals for various operational aspects such as data access and cryptocurrency payment systems, ultimately to fast-track the adoption of Boogle in each country. Southeast Asia, with its population of approximately 650 million, is its current key growth market and Boogle intends to build a subscriber base throughout the entire region by 2022.

Together with its search engine, Boogle is also launching a suite of other functionalities including its advertising platform, Boogle Ads, chat function, Boochat, and a search engine tailored for kids, Boogle Junior.

Boogle is a Principal Partner of the 2019 Singapore National Day Parade (NDP). Under this partnership, Boogle will handle software development for NDP’s operations and introduce blockchain technology into NDP’s existing operation systems for the first time in NDP’s history. As part of its sponsorship at the Parade, Boogle’s distinctive logo will appear on street banners, video trailers, television credits and mobile apps.