On 10/25/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
Even if you can resist that influence, getting a lot of your money from one source inevitably forces people to at least think a little harder about any action that might disrupt the flow. Accepting Jason's $100m/year number for the sake of argument, that means a rogue or clumsy admin who breaks the ads would cost us $11k per hour. If we end up violating Google's Terms of Service somehow, they could suspend us, costing us $273,927 per day. And deciding to shut off ads permanently would presumably mean firing a lot of people.
Well, there is so much money that could be generated as we've seen with Mozilla (i.e. $50-150M a year) you would have so much money in the bank that you would be subservient to NO ONE. If Google gives Mozilla a hard time they can walk away and never raise money again... they could simply live off the interest.
So, while I agree with you in concept, the reality is that this level of funding would be akin to an endowment that would make Wikipedia sustainable and independent FOR ALL TIME!
Wouldn't that be an amazing thing?
But suppose we could keep that from becoming a sort of subservience. Suppose we believe in our hearts that we'll quit the money (and fire the people) at the first hint of us compromising an article. Those kinds of numbers still create a pretty big conflict of interest. And a conflict of interest isn't a problem just because of what you do, but because people now have to be more suspicious of you.
In terms of the COI I can't see that happening as the advertising in Google is assigned by... well... machines. Those people buying the ads don't even know what sites the ads are going on! So, the COI would only exist in the eyes of the users and I think it would be a stretch to think that some randomized/rotating Google ads--the same ones they see all over the web--would make folks think there is a conflict.
Now, if they did see it as a conflict you could make all advertising displayed on Wikipedia 100% optin. If someone turns the ads on themselves they made the decision and the COI can't really exist can it?
Also, you could rotate the advertising between Yahoo, Google, and MSN and that would place another layer of distance.
All this being said, I respect people who want to protect the project so much. It's that relentless obsession with the issues that makes Wikipedia great. However, I might point out that the Wikipedia has a bigger conflict of interest right now if it is funded by a small number of donors--especially ones that are anonymous except to the insiders--
That's a COI of epic, star chamber proportions I think.... what if it comes out that Jimbo got Bono to put in $1M and Bono works for a VC firm that is funding wikia... :-)
I mean, you could really go X-Files level conspiracy level on this stuff.
best j --------------------- Jason McCabe Calacanis CEO, http://www.Mahalo.com Mobile: 310-456-4900 My blog: http://www.calacanis.com AOL IM/Skype: jasoncalacanis