EU Sovereignty Score
EU sovereignSearch EnginesHeadquarters: CZ

Seznam: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Seznam is a Czech internet company that runs a search engine and web portal for the Czech market. Besides web search it offers email, the Mapy.com maps service (formerly Mapy.cz), news and video media, the Sklik advertising platform, and marketplaces and directories such as Sreality.cz for real estate and Firmy.cz for business listings. The services are delivered as hosted web portals and applications, and a single Seznam account covers several of them. Its help pages also list an AI service, Seznam AI.

Seznam was founded in Prague in 1996 and is headquartered there. Its founder, Ivo Lukačovič, has remained the main shareholder, so ownership lies in the Czech Republic, within the EU, with no non-EU parent. Seznam's software is proprietary and no self-hosting option is documented. As a Czech company it is subject to EU law, including the GDPR.

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Sovereignty score
71 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-2100
    Headquartered in the EU: European law applies
  • Data residency SOV-3100
    EU-only hosting
  • Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-360
    Key management with a European vendor
  • Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
    Closed source: switching requires data migration
  • Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-655
    Closed source, runtime with the vendor

SOV codes: the matching objective in the European Commission's Cloud Sovereignty Framework. Official source

How the score is calculated

Facts and evidence

Last checked October 5, 2026
Headquarters
CZ (EU)Verified by hand
Sovereignty model
Vendor-hosted (EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting
EUVerified by hand
Open-source
NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant
YesVendor-stated
Category
Search Engines
Type
Product
Website
seznam.cz ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Seznam

The European alternatives to Seznam come from our knowledge base of over 6,800 vendors. We only list vendors headquartered in the EU or the EEA; fully European-owned vendors rank before vendors with a foreign owner. For each alternative you see the country, the open-source status and a short description.

Score per alternative: 0 = high exposure, 100 = sovereign

15 European Search Engines vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

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Why digital sovereignty matters with Seznam

Seznam is headquartered in CZ and therefore falls under European law: the GDPR, NIS2 and the Data Act. No foreign legislation can compel access to your data.

Data is hosted exclusively in the EU, so Seznam scores best on data residency.

Seznam is closed source and hosted by the vendor. The encryption keys and the runtime sit with the vendor and switching requires data migration. Ask about bring-your-own-key, export options and open standards.

What this means for your organisation depends on your whole stack and context. The free assessment weighs Seznam together with your other vendors and gives a total score, a heatmap and the main risk drivers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best European alternative to Seznam?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Seznam include Ecosia, Lilo and MetaGer. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Seznam?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Seznam include MetaGer. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

Is Seznam GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Seznam is headquartered in CZ (EU) and hosts data in EU. That makes Seznam an EU-sovereign choice in its own right; the EU alternatives on this page are comparable European tools.

Details and sources

Verified by handHeadquarters, owner, hosting locations and licence have been checked by us against public sources. Free of charge and for every vendor, not a paid label. Nothing in this knowledge base is taken over automatically. Last checked on October 5, 2026.

Sources

Public sources used in the latest check of this record.

Compliance evidence

The links below point to the vendor's own public documents. We only record what we found: a missing link means "not found publicly", not "not compliant".

No public compliance evidence has been recorded for this vendor yet. Do you know its DPA or subprocessor list? Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Digital sovereignty in Search Engines

Search Engines: Search engines — privacy-friendly web searching. In this category the choice of vendor determines who has legal access to your data, where that data lives and how easily you can switch later.

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8 European alternatives to Seznam — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score