[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation and Saudi Telecom (STC) partner to provide access to Wikipedia free of mobile data charges in the Middle East

[Andreas Kolbe]

On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 8:19 PM, Theo10011 <de10011 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Yann
>
> It's not a partnership with the government, it's with a telecom company



Theo, Saudi Telecom was wholly owned by the Saudi government when it was
founded in 1998. It held monopolies then.

After a partial privatisation in the early 2000s, STC remains 70% owned by
the Saudi government, with the remainder owned by "domestic investors
(16.4%), the Public Pension Fund (6.6%) and the General Organisation for
Social Insurance (7.0%)".[1]

To say that it's not partnership with the Saudi government is a little
misleading. I am not saying there is anything wrong with it, but surely you
can understand that there is interest in what exactly the terms of this
partnership are.

[1]
http://www.telegeography.com/page_attachments/products/website/research-services/globalcomms-database-service/0003/2274/gcd-saudi-telecom-company-stc.pdf