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GitHub
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Basic information
Founded 2008-02-08
Legal Structure Subsidiary
Industry Developer platform
Also known as
Official website https://www.github.com

Github (GH) is a proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GH itself provides access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous integration, and wikis for every project. Headquartered in California, GH has been a subsidiary of Microsoft since 2018.

Consumer impact summary

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Overview of concerns that arise from the conduct towards users of the product (if applicable):

  • User Freedom
  • User Privacy
  • Business Model
  • Market Control

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  • Privacy: GH is owned by Microsoft, raising questions about data usage. GH has recently engaged in aggressive Copilot integration.[1] Many projects such as the Gentoo Linux project, have left GH due to the privacy and security concerns associated with AI.[2][3][4]
  • Transparency: While some tools like the gh CLI are open-source,[5] the platform itself is closed-source and proprietary.

Incidents

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Questions about data usage (2024-present)

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GH does not specifically tell you the data usage for AI with private repositories. This means that it might be using your data to train AI models by Microsoft like Copilot.[6] Previously, Copilot exposed vital private repositories from big companies, raising even more concerns.[7]

This is a list of all consumer-protection incidents this company is involved in. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the GitHub category.

Planned fees for self-hosted Action runners (2025-present)

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In December 2025, GH announced a new $0.002 per minute "cloud platform charge" for developers using self-hosted GH Actions runners on private repositories. It was due to take effect on March 1 2026, but seems to be postponed indefinitely. [8]

Whitelisting of email domains on new accounts

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GH restricting the domains of emails you can use to create an account on their site, effectively blocking the use of email aliases to protect your privacy

When creating a new account on the platform, GH restricts the use of emails from certain domains, such as to disallow the usage of email aliases. Which a user might use to preserve their privacy.

More info

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"Give Up GitHub"

Products

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This is a list of the company's product lines with articles on this wiki.


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See also

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Link to relevant theme articles or companies with similar incidents.


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References

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  1. https://github.com/features/copilot (Archived)
  2. https://itsfoss.com/news/gentoo-github-switch-begins/ (Archived)
  3. https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/gentoo-charts-new-path-moving-away-github-toward-codeberg (Archived)
  4. Kelley, Andrew (2025-11-26). "Migrating from GitHub to Codeberg". ⚡ Zig Programming Language. Archived from the original on 2026-03-03. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
  5. "GitHub's official command line tool (source Git repository)". GitHub. 3 Oct 2019. Archived from the original on 28 Jan 2026. Retrieved 16 Sep 2025.
  6. "What specific data exactly will be send to Copilot?". GitHub. Archived from the original on 12 May 2025. Retrieved 7 September 2025.
  7. "Copilot AI Exposes Private GitHub Code From Top Companies". digitalchew.com. Archived from the original on 26 Apr 2025.
  8. "Coming soon: simpler pricing and a better experience for GitHub Actions". GitHub. Archived from the original on 25 Mar 2026.