STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Germany’s Ecosia, a nonprofit search engine, said on Thursday it has submitted a proposal to assume a 10-year stewardship of Alphabet’s Google Chrome web browser.
According to the proposal, Google would legally separate Chrome into a foundation, retaining ultimate ownership and intellectual property rights and give Ecosia operational responsibility for 10 years, Ecosia said.
Ecosia plans to reinvest part of Chrome’s profits in climate action under Ecosia’s governance, with the remainder returned to Google as compensation for the stewardship.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Earlier in August, Perplexity AI made a $34.5 billion unsolicited all-cash offer for Chrome, a bid far above its own valuation as the startup reaches for the browser’s billions of users pivotal to the AI search race.
(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
