I have been sick a lot lately, so have had a lot of time on my hands. I don’t have a search for Kagi or something. I wanted to use Kagi though, so I was disappointed when I realized that they want to continue this practice.

What are you implying with it being suspicious? In what way?

If Kagi pays a Russian company for a service, that company pays taxes to the Russian government.

Russia spends 32% of its budget on the Russian military. So for every dollar they get in taxes, one third is spent on the Russian military.

With a corporate tax rate of 20% that means 6.4% of Yandex profits go to the military. Since Kagi is mainly a paid service, I don’t want my money to go to the Russian military, and I guess a lot of other people don’t want this either.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-hikes-national-defence-spending-by-23-2025-2024-09-30/

The Russian people are not to blame, and I am sure a lot of great people work at Yandex and at different companies in Russia. That said, Russia chose to attack a peaceful democratic country, they are currently sanctioned by a lot of western countries in hopes that it will pressure their economy enough to force them to stop the war.

There isn’t much we can do to stop the conflict besides hurting them economically and supporting Ukraine. If we continue to use Russian products and services then that does not work. Unfortunately this affects everyone in Russia.

Obligatory mention that Kagi also use the Russian search index Yandex. This aids the Russian economy and the Russian war effort.

Edit: I recommend reading my in depth explanation here https://lemmy.world/comment/15520236

I think the reason is that every time they post something, someone there points out the Andy Yen thing. Thats basically the only comments. So its detrimental to their business.

FYI: Kagi uses the Russian search engine Yandex as well and have no plans of changing it.

Mentioning it, as to some it might be an issue indirectly financially supporting a Russian company.

Just search for Kagi Yandex and you will get plenty officiak sources