Is GitLab's Terms of Service safe?

Top concerning points

1. 1.

   Sensitive data is collected and shared to target advertising

   blocker

   High

   Sensitive data refers to information requiring special protection, such as health data, political and religious beliefs, ethnic origins, sexual life and financial information. The service collects and shares this data with third parties for advertising or marketing.

2. 2.

   Your personal data is used for automated decision-making, profiling or AI training

   blocker

   High

   Personal data or content you share with the service may be processed to make decisions by automated means without human involvement. This includes profiling, which is any form of automated processing of your information to analyse or predict things like your economic situation, health, personal preferences or interests; as well as Artificial Intelligence training.

3. 3.

   Instead of asking directly, this Service will assume your consent merely from your usage.

   bad

   High

   The Service infers your acceptance from your continued usage, instead of prompting you to read the new Terms and asking for direct consent. This doesn’t apply to services that have no way to seek consent from users through their contact details or an account.

   Source quote / document
4. 4.

   Your personal data is used for advertising

   bad

   High

   Your interaction with the service and data you have shared with them may be gathered to create an advertising ID or profile to target ads on you, either on the website you were visiting or in third party websites.

5. 5.

   Terms may be changed any time at their discretion, without notice to you

   bad

   High

   The Agreements can be updated at any time, including in a way that negatively affects user rights, without notifying before or after the changes.

   Source quote / document
6. 6.

   Third-party cookies are used for advertising

   bad

   High

   The service's website sets third-party cookies (cookies that do not belong to their domain) for purposes not including statistics and analytics.

7. 7.

   Third-party cookies are used for statistics

   bad

   High

   For instance, Google Analytics, rather than self-hosted (first-party) statistics software.

8. 8.

   Your profile is combined across various products

   bad

   High

   When using multiple services from one same company, they can combine these (unrelated) information sources about you to build up a single richer user profile about you.

Frequently asked questions

What is GitLab's ToS;DR privacy grade?

ToS;DR rates GitLab as Grade E. Grades range from A (best) to E (worst). See the full breakdown on ToS;DR.

Is GitLab's Terms of Service safe?

ToS;DR's Grade E means the terms raise serious concerns. Read the blocker and bad points carefully before accepting.

What is a top concern in GitLab's terms?

Sensitive data is collected and shared to target advertising — Sensitive data refers to information requiring special protection, such as health data, political and religious beliefs, ethnic origins, sexual life and financial information. The service collects and shares this data with third parties for advertising or marketing. (Source: ToS;DR approved point).

Where can I read GitLab's official terms?

ToS;DR tracks "Website Terms of Use" at https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/legal/policies/website-terms-of-use/. Always prefer the official document over summaries.