Hassan Khan
OpenAI Removes ChatGPT Search Feature After Privacy Concerns Rise
This week, OpenAI quietly rolled back a feature in ChatGPT that raised a few too many eyebrows. The company had introduced an option allowing users to make their conversations “discoverable” by search engines like Google. While the idea sounded helpful at first letting others find useful AI chats it quickly turned into a privacy headache.
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Dane Stuckey, OpenAI’s Chief Information Security Officer, confirmed the change in a post on Thursday. He described the feature as a “short lived experiment” that just didn’t feel safe enough.
“In the end, we believe that this feature created too many chances for people to unintentionally share things,” Stuckey stated.
Users had to manually tick a box to make their discussion visible to the public and searchable because the service was opt in. The problem? Some people were unwittingly exposing their private conversations discussions about anxiety, harassment, and even mental health to the internet because they didn’t pay attention to those small checkboxes.
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It didn’t take long for people to notice. Privacy researcher Luiza Jarovsky shared examples on X (formerly Twitter), showing how some very personal conversations with ChatGPT were showing up in Google search results. That post sparked major concern across the AI community.
The chats were anonymized, but that didn’t erase the problem. Even without names, these were still sensitive, vulnerable exchanges. And in an age where digital privacy already feels fragile, this felt like a step too far.
OpenAI acted fast. By Friday, the feature was gone. In an effort to clean up the existing information, they have also begun deleting stuff that is indexed by search engines.
What is the lesson here, then?
Even the largest AI firms are still learning the ropes. Even though OpenAI had the best of intentions, this serves as a reminder that privacy should always come first. Make sure you understand precisely where your data is going and who could see it if you’re Utilizing AI technologies to work through personal ideas or investigate delicate subjects.
Always click those boxes, be informed, and maintain your privacy.
