Okay maybe I was a bit too negative. I agree with these points and also give them 3 blocks 🙂

I would say the following:

1. They indeed use google analytics and newrelic (this one may come from 3rd party plugins/addons). Many websites use these, or at least Google Analytics, to keep track of their visitors (at times not for profit reasons). So for this I’d give it a 3.

2. Using Google Captcha can, at times, be necessary since it is perhaps the best anti-spam protection. They use it to get rid of spam. It is true that Google collects data about users through this, so I’d give them just 4 blocks for this since I find this as necessary to use at times.

3. The 5GB Nextcloud Limitation is normal since you cannot give unlimited storage space for free. I would only consider it a trade if they would ask for currencies or something else in order to either get this, or expand the storage space. But they seem to give 5Gb to anyone as trade-free.

4. Linking to social networks like facebook or twitter is problematic for various reasons, so I would give them 4 blocks for that, but would not consider it a big deal especially when you simply link to these and not use their buttons that contain trackers.

5. On Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDesktop.org#History I found that the company who owns them is this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Systems and they say “According to Blue Systems employee Aurélien Gâteau, “Blue Systems does not have a business model, at least for now”.”

Overall I would consider this as trade-free generally. With caveats of course.

Well that’s a tricky one. On the website they use google analytics and have ads for their facebook and twitter account. These networks are trade-based. I registered an account and I had to verify to google that I’m not a robot via reCAPTCHA – google uses that of course to collect data about you so that’s another trade. After I verified my email I have access now to surprisingly a lot of services like files, calendar, maps (using openstreetmap.org) etc. – however privacy badger shows me a tracker called “cdn.pling.com” and “www.pling.com” and uBlock origin blocked “newrelic.com”. “New Relic is a San Francisco, California-based technology company which develops cloud-based software to help website and application owners track the performances of their services.” (https://www.wikiwand.com/en/New_Relic#/Products) It says to help track the performances of their servies, but I won’t trust them, because if you dig into they privacy policy, you will figure out they collect a shit ton of data about you and share it with 3rd parties and such: https://newrelic.com/termsandconditions/privacy New Relic is also a big corporation with a revenue of around 600 million dollar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Relic)

pling.com is part of opendesktop.org’s services and has also google analytics and new relic, so it also collects data.

Let’s continue with opendesktop.org: when I click on one of these services like “files”, a nextcloud tab opens and after i logged in with the same username and password I have access to these services and and they seem to be trade-free, as there are no trackers or ads. However I have a limited amount of storage which is 5 gb. “Social” opens Mastodon which is trade-free, “Projects” opens opencode.net which seems to be trade-free – so all of these services are trade-free. They do not offer any premium or paid account, but the storage is limited to 5 gb – I don’t know if you can increase that and if you have to do something for doing that.

So on a positive note, you have access to a bunch of services, but on the negative note, you have to trade your data in order to get there to use them.

Framasoft (https://www.directory.trade-free.org/goods-services/framasoft/) seems to also provide you with the same services on their website and they also show you how you can install nextcloud: https://framacloud.org/fr/cultiver-son-jardin/nextcloud.html (yes unfortunately it’s in french…) and they do that without collecting your data.

All in all I am inclined to consider them as not trade-free with the argument of data collection. They can remove google-analytics, as it just serves to collect data about users. They could also remove the ads to facebook and twitter. And about that newrelic.com tracker – is also shady. And if the founder of opendesktop.org Karl Karlitscheck says “Privacy is the foundation of democracy” and that people should have a basic right “to control their own data in the Internet age.” – then he shouldn’t use google-analytics.

And last but not least, I found the company behind opendesktop.org which is called hive01: “h i v e 01 is an internet marketing specialist focused on internet advertising as a means to sell, distribute, and promote goods and services. We have several years of experience with internet marketing. Our online campaigns, text link advertisements and search engine optimization services are the cornerstone of your successful internet marketing strategy.” http://hive01.com/advertising/

All in all: if we want to have a directory which is as trade-free as possible, I would not add opendesktop.org – there are alternatives like framasoft. What is your opinion about opendesktop.org?