I’m writing this article in a Google Doc, in the Google Chrome browser, based on information I found on Google Search. Most of this information also concerns Google. I’ll mention two things: this year alone, Google spent over $21 million on lobbying, and yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the company announced a $3.1 million donation to the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit arm of Wikipedia. These don’t sound like huge amounts of money for a company as big as Google, but business decisions like these—a donation here, a law passed there—allow tech companies to slowly lay the foundation for a comprehensive online experience.
Google’s donation is split into two parts: $2 million for the Wikimedia offering and $1.1 million to fund the creation of Wikipedia content in underrepresented languages. In the words of Google’s PR, the donation “will provide editors with resources and insights to create new Wikipedia articles in 10 languages in India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, and the Middle East and North Africa.”
Wikipedia is an incredibly useful resource, and increasing global access to knowledge is wonderful. But when you consider what Google (and other tech companies like Apple and Amazon, which are also sponsors) are getting for their money, it feels less like a charitable act and more like an investment. Even though Wikipedia is a creative commons resource — free for anyone to use and distribute — most people get to Wikipedia through Google, so expanding Wikipedia’s reach means strengthening Google. And many of Google’s products and services rely on Wikipedia content, as Louise Matsakis tells Wired. Google has used Wikipedia articles to train algorithms and power its so-called knowledge graph, and Apple and Amazon use Wikipedia content to power their voice assistants.
It may seem odd for a company to donate to create a resource that is also used by its competitors, but when it comes to improving our knowledge and, by extension, our lives, all of the “Big Five” tech companies (Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple) are on the same side. Last year, Team Tech was further thrust into public policy after several scandals and criticism from antitrust activists. Amazon and Facebook spent about $14 million and $13 million on lobbying, respectively, with Microsoft at $9.5 million and Apple at $6.6 million, bringing the total to $64.3 million spent by the Big Five.
All that money aimed at changing government policy and supporting the world’s largest online encyclopedia means that no matter how far you separate yourself from the Big Five’s services and products, their reach extends to every nook and cranny of the internet. Gizmodo reporter Kashmir Hill experienced this firsthand during a week-long effort to stop using Amazon.
The day Google announced its donation in Davos, Sheryl Sandberg was introduced at an event as the person who figured out how to monetize people's data. According to BuzzFeed News tech reporter Ryan Mac, the audience laughed.
