Google’s Brin, Wife Donate $500,000 To Keep Wikipedia Going

by Poornima Gupta, Reuters

Very few have missed Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales’ picture looming on all of the pages of the user-generated information website.

But that may soon go away, thanks to Google co-founder Sergey Brin and his wife Anne Wojcicki.

The duo donated $500,000 to the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia and its sister sites, through their Brin Wojcicki Foundation.

The popular website had kicked off its annual fundraiser this week with Wales appealing to its readers to donate toward the costs of servers, bandwidth, maintenance, development and employee salaries. His argument — donate to keep the site free of ads and other commerce.

“This is how Wikipedia works: people use it, they like it, and so they help pay for it, to keep it freely available for themselves and for everyone around the world,” said Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, thanking Brin and Wojcicki for the support.

The foundation has already raised about $725,000 with $275,000 left to meet their goal, according to the website.

Another big donor and Wales’ picture will disappear until next year. Anyone up?