System1 Building Something

[Brad]

None of this is new news but it might have slipped under the radar.

System1 is an ad-tech company that has moved into the privacy market.

They bought Startpage search engine and have been aggressively promoting it on social media.

https://hackernoon.com/startpage-is-still-a-privacy-first-browser-says-system1-ceo-9dax33q0

But in that interview this:

We are spending a lot of time thinking about where privacy is headed and how we can provide a compelling suite of products for people. Last year we acquired the Waterfox browser, which is known for, among other things, being privacy friendly. We are also working on a private mapping solution in our MapQuest business. We believe a combined offering, which could include VPN and other privacy-related services, would be a very interesting privacy bundle for our users. Stay tuned!

The quote above is where it gets interesting: they also bought Waterfox browser AND Mapquest off of Verizon.  That's news to me.  And interesting.

https://www.ghacks.net/2020/02/14/waterfox-web-browser-sold-to-system1/
https://www.joshloe.com/2019/10/01/verizon-sells-mapping-service-mapquest-to-ad-tech-firm-system1/

So you have a popular privacy meta-search engine, a small but established privacy browser and now a mapping service.  Somebody is moving faster than I thought.