We all know very well that the well-known free online encyclopedia, of course, the Wikipedia has recently accused the tech giant Apple simply for “exploiting” its content for commercial purposes without donating a single penny to the Wikimedia Foundation, the company responsible for managing this digital encyclopedia.
Wikipedia: Apple Exploiting The Service Without Donating A Single Penny
The well-known free online encyclopedia, of course, the Wikipedia has recently accused the tech giant Apple simply for “exploiting” its content for commercial purposes without donating a single penny to the Wikimedia Foundation, the company responsible for managing this digital encyclopedia. Who made such a controversial statement was Lisa Gruwell, the company’s revenue director.
The situation is this: all personal assistants currently available in the market – Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant – use information from Wikipedia whenever a user conducts an educational consultation, such as “Who was the president of the United States in 1973?” Annually, Google makes donations to Wikimedia that reach almost one million dollars. On the other hand, the tech giant Apple and the giant e-commerce website Amazon do not pay anything to the project.
Obviously, many may argue that Wikipedia is a non-profit portal, and that’s a fact. However, once its content is used for commercial purposes, the rules of the game tend to change, because such a method of presenting content creates an extra barrier between the institute and the end reader, which becomes less apt to collaborate financially with the encyclopedia.
“Our content is here to be used. It is licensed freely and there is a reason for it. At the same time, it is like the environment. It is there to be used, but not exploited. We need people using such content give something back,” Gruwell said in an interview with TechCrunch.
“In the case of Alexa and Siri, our content is intermediated. Wikipedia works because people can contribute and edit it, and once a year we ask web users if they can make donations. not through us – but through something like Siri and Alexa – their opportunity to contribute back as an editor is broken, and the opportunity to donate as well.”
Although Wikipedia claims that the tech giant Apple does not offer money to service, the manufacturer at least encourages its employees to do so; joint donations from the tech giant Apple employees totalled about $50,000 last year. Amazon, on the other hand, does not offer any collaboration.
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