This is one of the main reasons why I use (and pay) for another search engine than Google. It just keeps translating everything it can to the country I’m connecting from. Even results from Reddit go to an automatically translated page.
Google is really bad at handling multilingual users, or even just users that don’t want to use the language of the place they connect from. Now by default Youtube even translates the audio automatically, it’s unbearable.
And I have declared the languages I speak in my Google profile. It doesn’t seem to matter.
You do realize that the fact of paying for any service makes your usage perfectly attributable to real identity, don't you. Something that Google needed to work hard to infer with some level of certainty you actually pay for. And I'd only have so much trust in promises of respecting your privacy given by any business. Everything that can be sold is for sale, event if this meant that it could not longer claim to "do no evil".
Paying for a search engine means that I am the customer, not the product. While you are correct that my data is an asset for Kagi, it is a one shot asset, vs my subscription, which is recurring revenue.
I can look at the privacy policy for Kagi (https://kagi.com/privacy), and see that I am not at risk of having my searches logged or data shared. I trust them because violating that privacy policy puts them at risk of being sued by me, and by any investors in the company.
As you yourself stated: either company is capable of building a profile. One has promised not to do that contractually, and google, more or less, has promised to do exactly that regardless.
Google is really bad at handling multilingual users, or even just users that don’t want to use the language of the place they connect from. Now by default Youtube even translates the audio automatically, it’s unbearable.
And I have declared the languages I speak in my Google profile. It doesn’t seem to matter.