Europe's Google rival canned

A project to create a European search engine to rival Google has fizzled out due to the German governments' withdrawl of support.

The Quaero programme, jointly supported by the German and French governments, planned the creation of a video and audio search engine that would break Google's, and therefore American, dominance of the search market.

The project also involved companies such as Bertelsman, Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom. According to reports in today's Guardian newspaper the German government has walked away from the £270m project because it doubted that the proposed search engine could challenge the established companies like Google and Yahoo in this market.

While it seems the French intend to continue with the Quaero programme, the German economics and technology ministry told the Guardian that it would instead focus its attention on an information and technology service called Theseus.

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