Wikipedia is launching a paid service for big tech companies

The Wikipedia Foundation is finally going to start asking Big Tech to pay.

The foundation is creating a new entity called Wikimedia Enterprise that will offer new options for companies that use its content like Apple, Google, Facebook, and more.

Specifics are still being finalised but Wikimedia Enterprise will offer a premium version of Wikipedia's API that will let customers scrape and re-host Wikipedia articles.

Paying customers could get data delivered quicker or they could have data formatted to meet their needs along with new options for sorting and posting.

Wikipedia wants to be clear that it isn't forcing companies to pay. They can continue to use the API for free.

However, reports say that using the paid service could solve problems such as preventing vandalised or poorly vetted articles from appearing on platforms. It will also only allow the most reliably edited and vetted articles to appear.

This article was first published in Hardware Zone.