Yesterday, the Wikimedia Foundation announced that it is creating a new paid service for companies that draw on Wikipedia data. This new service will launch later this year and will be called the Wikimedia Enterprise. It will not change how the current Wikipedia services work.
However, the new service will offer new options for companies that use its content, including giants like Google and Facebook. In the announcement, the firm said that it is still finalizing how Wikimedia Enterprise will operate. However, all-in-all it will be like a premium version of Wikipedia’s API. Enterprise customers will have the option to get the data faster or formatted according to their needs.
The Wikimedia Foundation senior director Lane Becker explained that some companies already pay employees to clean up Wikipedia data. Enterprise will just make their task easier. Moreover, the companies will have an option to keep using the existing API for free.
Many big tech companies run their operations with the help of Wikipedia and Google’s “knowledge boxes” that incorporate information for free.
Wikimedia claims that with this new service it is not forcing big tech companies to pay, but if they invest in the service, that will help to solve issues related to false or insulting vandalized articles and fact-checking.
The Wikimedia Enterprise team acknowledged, This is about setting up the movement to thrive for decades to come, to weather any storm, and to genuinely stand a chance at achieving the mission first conceived 20 years ago. We’re going to need more resources, more partners, and more allies if we are going to achieve the goals implicit in our vision statement.
