Private chats can be found on Google: OpenAI withdraws function

Private chats on ChatGPT can be shared. This is only done at the user's request and on purpose. However, the function for this has so far offered an apparently often misunderstood option. As a result, numerous conversations with the AI chatbot have been publicly discoverable. Anyone who knew how to do this could easily search for people or topics on Google. Chats about murder, sexual preferences and other explosive content are also said to have appeared.

To share a conversation history, you had to create a public link. Anyone who has this link can of course also read the chat. So far so good and not yet findable on Google. However, there was an additional option: "Make this chat discoverable". Some people probably misunderstood this and thought they had to check the box for the share link to work. But instead, they made the chat content freely available , including for search engines.

This is therefore not a malfunction or even a leak, but rather a misunderstanding. OpenAI is now retracting and making the selection disappear. Dane Stuckey, CISO at OpenAI, has now announced this on X. Stuckey also explains that the function was intended to help people find helpful conversations with other people. Exactly which conversations with a chatbot should inspire other people remains open. In the comments to the X post, someone writes that it was a great opportunity for GEO – Generative Engine Optimization, the new equivalent of SEO, Search Engine Optimization.

However, OpenAI has apparently not found enough really useful applications either. "Security and data protection are our top priorities, and we will continue to work on incorporating this into our products and functions in the best possible way," writes Stuckey. It remains unclear what will happen to the chats that can already be found publicly. In principle, the responsibility for these probably lies with the people who set the hook. However, OpenAI could potentially hide them all again.

(emw)