It&#x27;s important to emphasize that Stallman advocates and emphasizes _freedom_.<p>&quot;For privacy&#x27;s sake, you must avoid nonfree software since, as a consequence of giving others control of your computing, it is likely to spy on you. Avoid service as a software substitute; as well as giving others control of your computing, it requires you to hand over all the pertinent data to the server.&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gnu.org&#x2F;philosophy&#x2F;surveillance-vs-democracy.en.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gnu.org&#x2F;philosophy&#x2F;surveillance-vs-democracy.en....</a><p>But free software can still do bad things.  RMS is currently discussing (within GNU) standard guidelines for privacy expectations for GNU projects, which I&#x27;m encouraged by; once those are released, it&#x27;d be a good thing for other non-GNU projects to follow as well.