Last month, e-commerce marketplace Amazon launched a relatively unnoticed new feature that brings content from Wikipedia pages to its own servers, in a shadowy new project that appears to be called “Shopping Enabled Wikipedia Pages.” Hosted on the Amazon.com domain, they replicate Wikipedia’s content but have added links to where a book can be purchased on Amazon.
“Shopping enabled Wikipedia pages are a new introduction on Amazon.com,” Amazon representative Anya Waring told CNET when asked via e-mail. “As of November, we have rolled out in the books category, however [it] will be expanding to new categories in 2011.”
It’s not an official partnership, Waring explained. Amazon’s use of the content is licensed under Creative Commons, the alternative to traditional copyright that Wikipedia uses for all of its user-sourced encyclopedia content.
Source: CNet
