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Does a FOSS App need TOS and Privacy Policy?

I'm currently working on a FOSS Discord bot. When I host an official instance of said bot, do I need a TOS and or Privacy Policy, or is a link to the license (in my case GPLv3) enough?

I live in Germany, if that makes a difference.

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19 comments
  • Code is not a human/lawyer readable policy, so if you access any sort of user data (and being a Discord bot that people interact with, you do), you'll likely need one. At least for Discord's legal purposes when you register the bot, I would assume.

    Play Store also requires one even if it's open-source. They just blanket require one even if it literally says "this app is a wallpaper and it doesn't even have internet access nor collect any data".

    Big companies just can't understand or picture that some apps are well behaved and don't scrape every bit of data they can get their hands on.

    • Can confirm Discord requires a public-facing privacy policy at least for public bots. Can't remember at what point I had to make one, but it is required for at least some cases.

19 comments