[Foundation-l] Shopping-enabled Wikipedia pages

[Sue Gardner]

Ah, Erik, thank you so much for writing this. I'd just been about to
write something similar: you beat me to it :-)

Thanks,
Sue

On 05/12/2010, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> 2010/12/4 Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com>:
>> Personally, I think that this is a good opportunity to get money from
>> payed ads. It is not even on Wikimedia servers.
>
> As I said on wikien-l, the current Amazon.com use is not part of any
> official relationship. We're concerned about the degree to which the
> Amazon.com pages resemble Wikipedia pages. The content use itself is
> clearly permitted, and we're not opposed to commercial use per se. On
> the contrary, free licenses encourage this kind of experimentation by
> anyone.
>
> The potential issue with this kind of commercialization is that it
> creates confusion about the "Wikipedia" brand and what it stands for.
> Wikipedia is currently understood to be one of the few mainstream
> sources of information that isn't commercialized, and which aims to
> provide a neutral and inclusive view of any given topic. A third party
> adding single-vendor shopping ads into the content, while the way the
> content is presented closely resembles Wikipedia, threatens to
> undermine that perception, as Amazon.com visitors may assume that this
> is something that's part of our operating model.
>
> This is why we're first and foremost concerned about the risk of
> identity confusion here, about the impact of such confusion on how
> Wikipedia is perceived, and about finding ways to reduce that risk.
> We'll continue our exploration of this issue and will let you know as
> things develop. It may also well be that this turns out to be a
> short-lived experiment on Amazon.com's part.
>
> In general, our relationship with businesses is shifting from
> revenue-focused trademark licensing agreements to mission-focused
> partnerships closely aligned with our strategic plan. For example,
> we're trying to find the best possible partners to distribute very
> large numbers of offline copies of Wikimedia content (e.g. on low-end
> mobile phones used in the developing world, or as part of computing
> projects targeting disadvantaged communities).
> --
> Erik Möller
> Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
>
> Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
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-- 
Sue Gardner
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation

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