Wikimedia Foundation receives payment from Google to help the same in serving the most accurate and up-to-date information on its search engine. The Wikimedia Foundation is a nonprofit group behind Wikipedia.
Google is one of the first companies that has bought commercial services of the same. Wikimedia Enterprise is a platform that provides massive chunks of information for customers like Google and others.
Wikimedia Enterprise allows customers to use APIs better suited to recycling and spitting out information on a much larger scale which is much better than relying on free data dumps and publicly available APIs to scrape information from Wikipedia’s web pages. The service also provided the ability to customers to retrieve updates for the contents. This helps to prevent outdated or inaccurate information from appearing on the web outside of Wikipedia.
Google Employs Wikimedia’s Services in Multiple Ways and is Not Limited Just to its Knowledge Panels
Google uses Wikimedia’s services in multiple ways although it is not noticed by the masses in general. Knowledge Panels are the most obvious service that Google receives from Wikimedia for its massive database. Other than this how Google gets facilitated by the services provided by Wikimedia is nebulous information which can only be anticipated.
Google cites Wikipedia in the information panels to add to some Youtube videos to fight misinformation and conspiracy theories. Google’s new partnership may affect the end-user, however, things about this are still not clear. Tim Palmer who is the managing director of Google’s search partnerships commented vaguely that Google is looking forward to strengthening its partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation through its Enterprise service.
Lane Becker who is Wikimedia Enterprise’s senior director of earned revenue told that their relations with Google have not matured yet and it is still in its “early days”. Any sort of comment about how Google may use the services provided was declined by him.
Wikimedia Foundation announced that not only Google but Internet Archive is also their customer however, as per the reports the Internet Archive is not paying for the services it is receiving.
Conclusion
Google has partnered with Wikimedia Enterprises and it is paying the same for the services it is receiving and will receive in the future. As per Wikimedia Enterprises Google is among the first companies that are receiving its services commercially. Google does not only receive services from Wikimedia Enterprises for its knowledge panels but the range and domain of the services it receives are not clear. Users may experience some change in services provided by Google but the attempts are being made to maintain things as they are as change may induce some learning curve.
Source : Wikimedia Foundation is Receiving Payment from Google for Better Access to Information
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