A proposed European search engine that supporters are hoping will be a “Google killer” may soon gain the backing of German media giant Bertelsmann.

Quaero, which means “I search” in Latin, is being billed as the “Airbus of the Internet,” as European leaders look to provide an alternative to U.S. domination of search with Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

Participants in the project, announced last year, already include corporate biggies and startups like Thomson, France Télécom, Deutsche Telekom, Thales, Bertin Technologies, Exalead, and Vecsys. A report in the Financial Timeson Monday said Bertelsmann might also join the effort.

French president Jacques Chirac announced Quaero’s launch during the French-German ministerial conference in Reims, France in April 2005. The companies are expected to present the project to France’s brand new Agency of Industrial Innovation (Agence de l'Innovation Industrielle) during the second half of January.

The agency has a budget of €2 billion ($2.41 billion) for such projects, but hasn’t said how much it will spend on Quaero. One French newspaper report said it could spend hundreds of millions of euros over five years and the companies could also provide funding.

Mr. Chirac, who wants to keep high-tech jobs in France, sees Quaero as Europe’s answer to the global challenge posed by Google and Yahoo. The French leader has been on an anti-Google tirade ever since French historian Jean-Noel Jeanneney, who heads up France’s national library, spoke out against the search giant’s book-scanning program last January. Mr. Jeanneney said Google Book Search would advance American cultural hegemony (see Google Opens Virtual Library).

“Political issues can crop up anywhere,” said Rick Summer, an analyst who covers Google at Morningstar. “We’ve seen a similar backlash against companies [posing] challenges and monopolistic behavior. It seems to be driven more by nationalism than it is by what the companies are doing.”

As far as dominating the search field goes, Google has very little to worry about from Quaero, Mr. Summer said. The only reason Google needs to worry about European governments is if they decide to regulate search in any way.

Mountain View, California-based Google is already competing with powerful rivals like Yahoo and Microsoft. Analysts believe it could easily battle a new, yet-to-be launched brand. That’s because much of search behavior is habit-driven and Internet users over the years have become accustomed to using Google and Yahoo, even in Europe.

There’s always the chance people could switch loyalties and move to a new search engine, but they would have to have a very good reason to do so, analysts say. Very expensive marketing campaigns coupled with very innovative technology could make it happen.

But that really isn’t something Google needs to worry about at this point, said Mr. Summer.

“It takes more than money,” he said. “Can you spend enough money to make people change habits? It’s possible. The larger risk for Google is, would a government ever be bold enough to regulate it?”