Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)
Verified“US non-profit, globally mirrored, US-governed.”
- Founded
- 2003
- Revenue FY24-25
- $208.6M
- Structure
- Non-profit
- Content license
- CC BY-SA
20 = midpoint of Control 19 & Data 20
Sovereignty Quadrant
Control ↑ who owns & governs the company · Data → where your data lives. Every dot is a company — click to open it.
Every number below traces to 12 sourced facts across 9 independent sources, last verified 2026-06-12. 3 open questions hold confidence at 88% — they lower confidence, never the score.
Control ↑
Who legally and economically controls the company
Legal & Jurisdiction
18
Incorporated in the State of Florida as a non-profit corporation and operated from San Francisco; governed by US (Florida + federal) law. No EU operating entity controls the platform. EU law (GDPR) applies extraterritorially to EU users, but enforceability runs against a US charity whose servers and books sit in the US.
Why 18? 3 sourced facts · click to expand
Legal entity & state of incorporation
Wikimedia Foundation Governance Wiki — Board Handbook · as of 2026-06-12
Tax-exempt status
ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer · as of 2026-06-12
Governing jurisdiction & data jurisdiction
Wikimedia Foundation Privacy Policy · as of 2026-06-12
Control & Ownership
20
As a non-profit there are no shareholders or voting equity; 'control' is the Board of Trustees, which is largely self-perpetuating (board-selected seats + a founder's seat for Jimmy Wales, plus community/affiliate-selected seats). The legal seat of that control is the US. There is no EU governance lever, though the community-selection mechanism gives global volunteers partial influence.
Why 20? 3 sourced facts · click to expand
No equity owners — non-profit
Wikimedia Foundation — Board of Trustees · as of 2026-06-12
Board composition
Wikimedia Foundation news — community/affiliate trustees · as of 2026-06-12
Founder's reserved seat
Wikipedia — Wikimedia Foundation · as of 2026-06-12
Data →
Where your data lives and who can reach it
Data & Infrastructure
18
Primary application data centers are in the US — eqiad (Equinix, Ashburn VA) and codfw (CyrusOne, Carrollton TX) alternate as primary; user data is collected, transferred, stored and processed in the U.S. per the privacy policy. EU footprint (esams/Amsterdam EvoSwitch, drmrs/Marseille Digital Realty) is caching/edge only, not the system of record. Subject to US legal process (e.g., subpoenas). Slight credit for self-operated colocation rather than a single US hyperscaler and for genuine EU edge nodes.
Why 18? 3 sourced facts · click to expand
Primary data centers
Meta-Wiki — Wikimedia servers · as of 2026-05-31
EU sites are caching only
Meta-Wiki — Wikimedia servers · as of 2026-05-31
User data location
Wikimedia Foundation Privacy Policy · as of 2026-06-12
Operations & People
22
HQ is San Francisco; reporting currency is USD; FY2024-25 financials filed under US GAAP and audited by KPMG. New CEO (eff. Jan 2026) is a former US Ambassador. Workforce (~650) is globally distributed/remote, which gives some non-US spread, but the operational and financial center of gravity is unambiguously US.
Why 22? 3 sourced facts · click to expand
Reporting currency & audited financials
Wikimedia Diff — FY2024-25 audit highlights · as of 2025-11-24
Incoming CEO
Wikimedia Foundation news · as of 2026-06-12
Aligned to the EU Commission’s official Cloud Sovereignty Framework (SEAL, Jun 2026) →
What we don’t know
3 open questions — they lower confidence, never the score
- ?
Are any EU-resident user data (e.g., for EU editors) stored exclusively in the EU, or always replicated to US primary?
Privacy policy states US storage/processing; EU sites appear caching-only, but exact replication scope for account/edit data isn't itemized — affects infra/GDPR exposure precision.
- ?
Exact current board headcount and the EU/non-EU nationality split of trustees as of mid-2026.
Board is partly community-selected and changes annually (new trustees added Dec 2025); affects how much non-US influence sits in governance.
- ?
Whether Wikimedia Enterprise (the commercial API arm) routes any EU-customer data through EU infrastructure.
Could nuance the infra/legal picture for paying EU customers vs. anonymous readers.
EU Cloud Sovereignty Framework lens
The SEAL framework targets commercial cloud providers; this is an analogous mapping for a US non-profit publisher, not a certification.
Strategic
Mission and strategy set by a US-domiciled foundation; no EU sovereignty mandate, though mission is global public-interest.
Legal & jurisdictional
Florida-incorporated 501(c)(3) run from San Francisco; governed by US law and subject to US legal process.
Data & AI
User data collected/stored/processed in the U.S.; EU nodes are caching only. CC BY-SA content is openly reusable (a plus for openness, neutral for residency).
Operational
HQ San Francisco, USD reporting, US-GAAP/KPMG audit; incoming CEO is a former US diplomat. Staff globally remote.
Supply chain
Self-operated colocation across US, EU and Asia (Equinix, CyrusOne, EvoSwitch, Digital Realty) — diversified, not locked to one US hyperscaler; primaries still US.
Technological
Runs almost entirely on its own open-source stack (MediaWiki, Linux) on owned/colocated hardware — high technical self-determination, but at US sites.
Security & compliance
20 consecutive clean external audits; mature transparency/privacy practices; but compliance is US-anchored, not EU-certified.
Environmental sustainability
Foundation has sustainability commitments and carbon reporting, but not verified in this profile.
EU alternatives
Swiss-based non-profit that packages offline copies of Wikipedia; Switzerland is non-EU/EEA but European and offers an EU-adjacent, self-hostable mirror of the same CC BY-SA content.
French-origin, EU-run encyclopedia association (Association Vikidia) — much smaller scope and aimed at children, but EU-governed and EU-hosted.
The corpus is CC BY-SA and the software (MediaWiki) is open source, so an EU institution can legally host a full mirror in-region — capability, not an existing EU operator.
How the method works
Methodology v2 (provisional): the score is the midpoint of two axes — Control (who owns and governs the company) and Data (where your data lives and who can reach it). Each axis is scored only on verified evidence; unknowns reduce confidence, never the score. Every input below is sourced; the weights and judgments are open to challenge.
Spotted an error? Every claim is sourced — challenge it and we correct the record.
- 2026-06-12 — Initial golden profile, authored from primary sources (human + AI review).
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Verified 2026-06-12 · Human + AI joint review (sources independently checked) · Methodology