Question

How does this site receive its revenue?
Since OpenStudy (OS) has .com extension, not .edu, OS is categorized as a commercial corporation and therefore unlikely to receive donation for its services. However, unlike most company that use internet to promote its product/service, openstudy.com is, in itself, the product OS offering.
Usually this type of company shows ads to their users (e.g. - youtube, facebook, etc), however since OS does not do such thing, I have this uneasy feeling that they are selling my information.
I don't mind if everything I posted here ( questions, profile details,

Answer 1

I don't mind if everything I posted here ( questions, profile details, statistic info ) are being sold. However I would feel unease if OS sells my email, facebook data, and or password.

Answer 2

No worries they will not sell anything ... u must trust them

Answer 3

:O
I've been asking myself this too...but i don't think OS is unsafe....

Answer 4

http://openstudy.com/terms-and-conditions

Answer 5

but it is weird thought. Where do they get money to run this website? Certainly they're not throwing their own money, right? There must be something they get in return. If not ads, what else?

Answer 6

So, first of all allow me to state the usage of a .com domain name, in and of itself, does not automatically make us a for-profit company. While we are for-profit, us having a .com isn't a definitive measure of that.

Second, we have no plans to sell user data or show ads. We're currently funded by the National Science Foundation and a few others.

Answer 7

I don't understand, what do you guys mean buy 'selling' user data?

Answer 8

@pratu043 sometimes companies will sell member info (emails and phone numbers, addresses etc) to companies that will offer them money. Usually, these companies that bought your info will then spam you, hoping you will buy their stuff or services.

On another note: http://openstudy.com/privacy-policy

Answer 9

I'd like to reinforce the fact that we definitely do not sell your personal information. We don't really sell any information, period. As farmdawg mentioned, we are currently funded by a series of educational grants, some notably from NSF, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations, and a few other sources. We're obviously trying to figure out the right way to bring in revenue so that we can be self-sustaining, but - as long as I can help it - it will never involve selling personal information or requiring payment to use OpenStudy. period.

Answer 10

Like a boss.

Answer 11

You guys should sell shirts and little owls to make some $$$ just saying

Answer 12

Well I feel OS is reliable , so such issues should not be given much importance.

Answer 13

.com is much more famous. They take .com everywhere. The domains don't really matter these days.

Answer 14

so does that mean there is very small chance that openstudy will charge for membership or for services?

Answer 15

“As long as I can help it” is a key part of mattfeury's post, by the way. Same here, but the moment may come when we can't help it ;) That said, we're not concerned at this particular moment.

Also, as farmdawg pointed out, .coms have no restrictions on who can use them. Other countries occasionally impose requirements on subdomains (e.g. I believe .co.uk is restricted in certain ways), but the .com top-level domain is pretty much wide-open for whoever.

Answer 16

Whoa I didn't know you all got funding from the NSF! That's pretty cool actually! Any chance you all could get funding from NIST or NASA too? :-D

( I hear the have nice toys :-3 Err I mean scientific equipment)

Answer 17

Do you guys accept donations?