Metaweb Technologies, Inc. was a San Francisco-based company that developed Freebase, described as an "open, shared database of the world's knowledge". The company, founded by Robert Cook and Danny Hillis in 2005, was acquired by Google in 2010. Although Metaweb no longer exists as a separate corporate entity, Freebase and its associated website freebase.com continue to be provided as an open database under Metaweb's original CC-BY licensing terms.