Their terms of service say "The DeepSeek Open Platform is jointly owned and operated by Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Co., Ltd., Beijing DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Co., Ltd. "
In terms of the personal data you share when using their models, I can't see why they would be any more or less nefarious than big Western tech companies.
That said, if you're using a model based in China then by providing them with data and feedback you are in a very small way helping researchers in China catch up with/keep up with/overtake researchers in the West. Maybe in the long term that could end badly. And if you are concerned about the environment, it's entirely possible their training and inference is run using coal power stations.
Their terms of service say "The DeepSeek Open Platform is jointly owned and operated by Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Co., Ltd., Beijing DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Co., Ltd. "
And they're funded by https://www.high-flyer.cn/en/fund/ which the FT did an article on: https://www.ft.com/content/357f3c68-b866-4c2e-b678-0d075051a...
In terms of the personal data you share when using their models, I can't see why they would be any more or less nefarious than big Western tech companies.
That said, if you're using a model based in China then by providing them with data and feedback you are in a very small way helping researchers in China catch up with/keep up with/overtake researchers in the West. Maybe in the long term that could end badly. And if you are concerned about the environment, it's entirely possible their training and inference is run using coal power stations.