OpenAI’s ChatGPT now offers a feature enabling users to generate a URL for their chatbot conversations to share with friends or colleagues. Recent reports indicate that some of these shared discussions were accessible via search engines, including Google Search, Bing, and DuckDuckGo. To view these conversations, users needed to filter their search results to a specific ChatGPT domain. OpenAI has confirmed that this experimental feature has since been disabled.
Private ChatGPT Conversations Reportedly Indexed by Search Engines
The potential issue was first highlighted by Fast Company, which discovered that inputting a search query with the domain filter “site:chatgpt.com/share” combined with any text could reveal numerous links to conversations held with the chatbot. The investigation by the publication turned up over 4,500 chat records, suggesting that the actual number of indexed conversations could be significantly larger.
While many of these conversations were reported to contain no identifiable personal details, some revealed users’ names, locations, and other private information. TechCrunch uncovered one instance where a user requested that ChatGPT revise their resume for a job application, leading to the identification of their LinkedIn profile based on the information shared within the chat.
Dane Stuckey, OpenAI’s Chief Information Security Officer, addressed the issue via a post on X (formerly Twitter). He noted that the exposure of private conversations stemmed from an experimental feature aimed at helping users uncover valuable discussions. This capability was accessible to a limited number of ChatGPT users, who had to explicitly create a shareable link and opt in for public visibility. The feature has now been disabled, and Stuckey shared an image highlighting the interface in question.
The interface for the experimental feature along with the opt-in checkbox.
Photo Credit: X/@cryps1s (Dane Stuckey)
Stuckey emphasized that privacy and security are paramount for OpenAI. He acknowledged that the feature “created too many opportunities for unintended sharing” of personal information, contributing to its removal. He also mentioned that OpenAI is actively working to eliminate the indexed content from relevant search engines. At the time of the report, staff at Gadgets 360 were unable to find any of the supposedly indexed conversations.