(17 Mar 2021) Wikipedia is launching a paid-for service in an effort to charge big tech companies for access to its trove of information. While the encyclopedia is run by a non-profit that operates on donations, keeping the essential online resource free for general users, it is readying a commercial product for later this year, reports Wired. According to its sign-up page, Wikimedia Enterprise will provide paid developer tools and services to companies and organizations that consume and re-publish info from its database.
Currently, the likes of Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon use the same public data set that is available to general users to stock their search results and power their virtual assistants. But in the future, those that fork out for the enterprise tools will get a tailor-made data dump that offers real-time changes in a compatible format. Wikimedia Enterprise will also provide customer service, including a team of technical experts, and will work to strict project delivery times.
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