System1

Last updated
System1
Company type Public
NYSE:SST
Industry News media security Internet advertising
Founded2013
Headquarters
United States  OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Key people
Michael Blend (CEO)
Chuck Ursini (Co-founder)
Brian Coppola (CPO)
Products Answers.com, HowStuffWorks, Info.com, Infospace, MapQuest, Startpage.com,
Formerly: Waterfox
Website system1.com

System1 is an American Internet advertising company. [1] Formerly known as OpenMail, it was founded in 2013. [2] [3] [4] It describes itself as operating a "Responsive Acquisition Marketing Platform", and cites privacy as one of its principal foci, although it has been criticized for its influence on privacy-focused properties, including search engine Startpage.com. [5] [6] It is headquartered in Marina del Rey, California. [7]

Contents

History

Michael Blend and Chuck Ursini founded the company in Venice Beach, California, in 2013. [2] [4]

In July 2016, Infospace and its subsidiaries HowStuffWorks, Dogpile, Zoo.com, MetaCrawler, and WebCrawler were bought by System1. [8] [9]

OpenMail rebranded as System1 shortly after April 2017. [2] [3] System1’s subsidiary, digital media publisher HowStuffWorks, also spun out as an independent podcast network in 2017. [10] [11]

In October 2019, System1 bought MapQuest from Verizon. [12] Cory Doctorow opined, as soon as MapQuest was bought by AOL (which was bought by Yahoo, Yahoo in turn bought by Verizon) it was doomed to die. Verizon had dumped MapQuest to System1 for such a small sum, it was "not material enough for Verizon to file paperwork". [12]

In February 2020, System1 acquired Waterfox; concern about the acquisition, as well as secrecy surrounding it, was expressed by the public. [13] System1 also acquired a controlling share in privacy-focused search engine Startpage in 2020. [14] The Waterfox and Startpage acquisition was done through System1's subsidiary Privacy One Group Ltd. [6] Further clarification and communication happened after public concern about the acquisition grew. [15]

In 2021, System1 announced that it would be going public on the New York Stock Exchange. [16] [17] The company also announced it would be combining with the SPAC Trebia Acquisition Corp. in a reverse merger. [16] [17] Through this deal, System1 also merged with the privacy subscription platform Protected.net. [18] It officially went public on January 31, 2022. [19] Protected.net would eventually rebrand as Total Security. [18]

In February 2022, System1 acquired consumer mapping service RoadWarrior. [20] [21] In March 2022, System1 purchased online coupon provider CouponFollow in a deal worth up to $110 million. [22] [23]

In April 2022, Waterfox set Startpage as its default search engine, reflecting the ownership of System1. [24]

In May 2022, in a quarterly earnings report, System1's acquisition of Answers.com was announced. [25]

From 2022-2023, System1 was named a Microsoft Supply Partner of the Year in the Americas. Microsoft also gave System1 an Advertising Global Partner Award in 2023. [14] [26]

In July 2023, Waterfox became independent of System1. [27] In October 2023, System1 announced a search partnership with European search engine Ecosia after Ecosia moved away from exclusively using Microsoft’s Bing. [28] In November 2023, System1 also announced the sale of Total Security. [29]

Properties

Related Research Articles

WebCrawler is a search engine, and one of the oldest surviving search engines on the web today. For many years, it operated as a metasearch engine. WebCrawler was the first web search engine to provide full text search.

Yahoo! is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, and operated by the namesake company Yahoo! Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Management and 10% by Verizon Communications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MapQuest</span> American free Internet mapping service (founded 1996)

MapQuest is an American free online web mapping service. It was launched in 1996 as the first commercial web mapping service. MapQuest vies for market share with competitors such as Apple Maps, Here and Google Maps.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dogpile</span> Metasearch engine

Dogpile is a metasearch engine for information on the World Wide Web that fetches results from Google, Yahoo!, Yandex, Bing, and other popular search engines, including those from audio and video content providers such as Yahoo!.

DoubleClick Inc. was an American advertisement company that developed and provided Internet ad serving services from 1995 until its acquisition by Google in March 2008. DoubleClick offered technology products and services that were sold primarily to advertising agencies and mass media, serving businesses like Microsoft, General Motors, Coca-Cola, Motorola, L'Oréal, Palm, Inc., Apple Inc., Visa Inc., Nike, Inc., and Carlsberg Group. The company's main product line was known as DART, which was intended to increase the purchasing efficiency of advertisers and minimize unsold inventory for publishers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intuit</span> American financial software company

Intuit Inc. is an American multinational business software company that specializes in financial software. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and the CEO is Sasan Goodarzi. Intuit's products include the tax preparation application TurboTax, the small business accounting program QuickBooks, the credit monitoring and personal accounting service Credit Karma, and email marketing platform Mailchimp. As of 2019, more than 95% of its revenues and earnings come from its activities within the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Startpage.com</span> Privacy-focused search engine based in the Netherlands

Startpage is a Dutch search engine company that highlights privacy as its distinguishing feature. The website advertises that it allows users to obtain Google Search results while protecting users' privacy by not storing personal information or search data and removing all trackers. Startpage.com also includes an Anonymous View browsing feature that allows users the option to open search results via proxy for increased anonymity.

Yahoo! Search is a search engine owned and operated by Yahoo!, using Microsoft Bing to power results.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Singingfish</span>

Singingfish was an audio/video search engine that powered audio video search for Windows Media Player, WindowsMedia.com, RealOne/RealPlayer, Real Guide, AOL Search, Dogpile, Metacrawler and Singingfish.com, among others. Launched in 2000, it was one of the earliest and longest lived search engines dedicated to multimedia content. Acquired in 2003 by AOL, it was slowly folded into the AOL search offerings and all web hits from RMC TV to Singingfish were being redirected to AOL Video and as of February 2007 Singingfish had ceased to exist as a separate service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsoft Advertising</span> Online advertising service

Microsoft Advertising is an online advertising platform developed by Microsoft, where advertisers bid to display brief ads, service offers, product listings and videos to web users. Provides pay per click advertising on search engines Bing, Yahoo! and DuckDuckGo, as well as on other websites, mobile apps, and videos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsoft Bing</span> Web search engine developed by Microsoft

Microsoft Bing, commonly referred to as Bing, is a search engine owned and operated by Microsoft. The service traces its roots back to Microsoft's earlier search engines, including MSN Search, Windows Live Search, and Live Search. Bing offers a broad spectrum of search services, encompassing web, video, image, and map search products, all developed using ASP.NET.

The following is a timeline of events of Yahoo!, an American web services provider founded in 1994.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DuckDuckGo</span> American software company and Web search engine

DuckDuckGo is an American software company that offers a number of products intended to help people protect their online privacy. The flagship product is a search engine that has been praised by privacy advocates. Subsequent products include extensions for all major web browsers and a custom DuckDuckGo web browser.

MetaCrawler is a search engine. It is a registered trademark of InfoSpace and was created by Erik Selberg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waterfox</span> Open-source web browser based on Firefox

Waterfox is a free and open-source web browser and fork of Firefox. It claims to be ethical and user-centric, emphasizing performance and privacy. There are official Waterfox releases for Windows, macOS, Linux and Android. It was initially created to provide official 64-bit support, back when Firefox was only available for 32-bit systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Qwant</span> Search engine based in France

Qwant is a French search engine that launched in February 2013. Qwant is privacy focused, claiming to not track users, resell personal data, or bias the display of search results.

Ecosia is a search engine based in Berlin, Germany. The company uses renewable energy to power its servers and invests its profits in tree-planting projects, aiming to absorb more CO2 than it emits.

Zoo.com is a metasearch engine, which as of 2006, provided results from search engines and other sources, including Google, Yahoo! and Wikipedia. Also as of 2006, Zoo.com provided news content from ABC News, Fox News and Yahoo! News.

Prodege, LLC is an American online marketing, consumer polling, and market research company based in El Segundo, California. The company develops consumer rewards and polling programs under various brands including Swagbucks, MyPoints, InboxDollars, CouponCause, Tada, Ysense, Upromise, and Pollfish.

References

  1. ↑ Reim, Garrett (September 19, 2017). "Venice's System1 Raises $270 Million". Los Angeles Business Journal. Retrieved 2 May 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 "System1 raises $270 million for 'consumer intent' advertising". bizjournals.com. Retrieved 2024-04-06.
  3. 1 2 "SPACs Are Running Out of Names to List". The Wall Street Journal. January 24, 2022. Retrieved 2024-04-06.
  4. 1 2 "System1: Silicon Beach's Sleeping Giant". CSQ | C-Suite Quarterly. 2018-01-02. Retrieved 2024-04-06.
  5. ↑ Sven Taylor (November 15, 2019). "Startpage Acquired by System1, Privacy One Group – Still Safe?". Restore Privacy. Retrieved 2 May 2023.
  6. 1 2 Brinkmann, Martin (November 16, 2019). "Startpage Search owner changes raise serious questions".
  7. ↑ "System1 Signs Large Sublease in Marina del Rey". Los Angeles Business Journal. 2021-04-18. Retrieved 2024-04-06.
  8. ↑ Ellingson, Annlee (September 20, 2017). "System1 raises $270 million for 'consumer intent' advertising". L.A. Business First. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
  9. ↑ "Blucora to sell InfoSpace business for $45 million". The Seattle Times. 2016-07-05. Retrieved 2024-03-12.
  10. ↑ "HowStuffWorks Gets $15 Million Series A, Spins Off As Independent Podcast Network". AdExchanger. 2017-08-31. Retrieved 2024-04-06.
  11. ↑ "HowStuffWorks is the latest podcast company to round up new funding". Vox. 2017-08-31. Retrieved 2024-04-06.
  12. 1 2 Doctorow, Cory (2019-10-10). "Verizon dumps another Oath property for peanuts: RIP, Mapquest". Boing Boing. Retrieved 2023-08-27.
  13. ↑ Brinkmann, Martin (Feb 15, 2020). "Waterfox web browser sold to System1". Ghacks Technology News. Retrieved 2023-08-27.
  14. 1 2 "Microsoft Advertising Partner Awards Americas winners". Microsoft. February 10, 2022. Retrieved 2024-04-06.
  15. ↑ "Privacy-focused search engine Startpage gives more details of the System1 investment". www.computing.co.uk. 2020-07-03. Retrieved 2024-03-12.
  16. 1 2 "System1 to go public via SPAC; Smart acquires DynAdmic - ExchangeWire.com". www.exchangewire.com. Retrieved 2024-04-21.
  17. 1 2 "System1 to go public through SPAC". Domain Name Wire | Domain Name News. 2021-07-05. Retrieved 2024-04-21.
  18. 1 2 3 Brock, James (2023-09-18). "System1 Mulls $240M Offer". Los Angeles Business Journal. Retrieved 2024-04-20.
  19. ↑ "System1 Goes Public On The NYSE, Virtually Rings The Bell". www.mediapost.com. Retrieved 2024-04-21.
  20. ↑ "System1, Owner of MapQuest, Buys RoadWarrior". socaltech.com. February 14, 2022.
  21. ↑ "MapQuest Parent System1 Closes RoadWarrior Deal". PYMNTS. 2022-02-11. Retrieved 2024-04-21.
  22. ↑ "Ad-ranking company System1 buys CouponFollow in deal worth up to $110 million". www.bizjournals.com. March 3, 2022. Retrieved 2024-04-21.
  23. ↑ "System1 acquires e-commerce coupon company from NextGen Shopping (NYSE:SST)". seekingalpha.com. 2022-03-04. Retrieved 2024-04-21.
  24. ↑ "Waterfox G4.1.0 update reduces requirement to SSE 4.1, sets Startpage as the default search engine for Private Tabs". 7 April 2022.
  25. ↑ "System1 Announces Preliminary First Quarter 2022 Financial Results". NASDAQ. 12 May 2022. Retrieved 2024-03-12.
  26. ↑ "2023 Global Partner Award winners!". Microsoft Advertising. Retrieved 2024-04-23.
  27. ↑ arindam (2023-07-31). "Waterfox Browser Cuts Ties with System1, Embarks on a New Journey". DebugPoint NEWS. Retrieved 2023-08-27.
  28. ↑ "A 'Green' Search Engine Sees Danger—and Opportunity—in the Generative AI Revolution". Wired. October 16, 2023. ISSN   1059-1028 . Retrieved 2024-04-20.
  29. ↑ "System1 (SST) Announces Sale of Total Security". StreetInsider.com. Retrieved 2024-04-20.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.