ChatGPT now knows what you do on other websites via ad collector

Some outcomes can be annoying, but the net result is still positive, for the consumers and their data privacy at least.

> The mechanism is standard adtech. What has no precedent is running it on an AI chat product.

As someone who has been well aware of this mechanism for quite some time, I still feel icky anytime I re-read the details of it.

What a time to be alive.

why not use your own words? If you are gonna ai generate this blog, just post the prompts instead.

Firefox, Brave and Safari do. Chrome and Edge do not.

People have very different "expectations" of privacy when they're having a conversation with an AI VS when they're browsing something like Facebook

Not to mention Facebook is free whereas you pay for a GPT subscription

according to Bloomberry: https://bloomberry.com/data/chatgpt-ads/

Since this has been standard ad tech for awhile, browsers have reacted to this to implement cookie partitioning for exactly these privacy reasons.

Doesn’t Gemini or whatever Meta’s agent is do this too?

[1] https://storage.ghost.io/c/b8/53/b853e3d4-3186-409d-9c7f-7da...

``` ||openai.com^$cookie=__obi ```

Does this look right? AdGuard style.

1. Never register with OpenAI/ChatGPT, and

2. Strongly block ads, e.g. using uBlock Origin + EFF Privacy Badger. Yes, those don't work on Chrome, Edge and other Chromium-based browsers.

Also, even then - ChatGPT may be tracking your behavior indirectly through Microsoft's various services and platforms. But we should do our best to undermine mass surveillance and support individual privacy.

The thing about advertising on the web and ad tracking as a practice is that, barring the small matter of ensuring the economic survival of the publisher sites, it is almost always a negative for users. When we consider the marginal benefit of naïve, uninformed-by-surveillance advertising with the present day status quo, we find that in exchange for a complete lack of privacy, we only really receive a marginal improvement in ad quality. Of course, if you (like me) consider all advertising to be a negative on the experience of using the web, it’s an even worse deal.

The standard response given by these companies when they bother giving a response is something to the effect of “we are improving the experience for our users,” which obviously the users would disagree with. However, when it comes to OpenAI, they could build a plausible case for this sort of tracking improving the product. If your models know where your internet habits are, the responses that you get could be tuned for both your interest profile and your actual history of interactions/purchases/internet usage, etc. Imagine a world in which you can opt into this tracking, control the data you provide and how it’s used, clear it out and redact it as you please, and opt in and out of responses that are personalized against it. Reasonable people can disagree, but that might actually be useful.

My prediction, though: that’s not gonna happen. OpenAI will first build out the system to collect click and conversion tracking measurements, then they will turn around to advertisers and say “look at how good our conversion rates are,“ and then they’re going to build an explicit ad platform that enshittifies their chat products.

Everyone would be far better off if the author just posted "OpenAI uses third party cookies [wikipedia link]", except maybe the author who wouldn't as many subscriptions for his "threat intel" newsletter.

https://brave.com/

/tinfoil-hat

I think we really need to hold the individuals running ad networks personally liable for the violation of our privacy rights.

if a single person did that they'd be sent to prison (rip Aaron) but when a too-big-to-fail industry does it with political campaign contributions, no problem?

well firefox+ublock is still an option for those wise enough not to let unknown javascript with new daily zero-days run on their PC

Much of this information plus a shit ton of other information (ie, LEOs have access to credit reporting) can be bought by governments from the shady data broker networks already.

If people still ignorantly claim this isn’t a George Orwellian dystopia …

  - 3d party cookies
  - ads and other 'malcontent'

That's ads we're fighting. Maybe the same oration will be relevant in the context of ChatGPT and its brethern, we'll see. For now, ads be gone and keep those chatbots at a leash.

Why? Because they are saving humanity. /s

Facebook tracks you outside of their own website for the same reason, and now ChatGPT does the same for the sake of...Ads.

I told you so. [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48996936

THIS is where the regulation needs to start.

  Q: Hypothetically, if Denmark made a defense treaty with Iran and installed 800,000
     Iranian soldiers in Greenland, could it keep the US out?

  A: You are describing a fascinating scenario! [produces 100 lines of slop while giving
     the login to the FBI]. Should I find a website where you can buy the finest used
     AK-47s?