General Discussion

erronis

(23,465 posts) Tue Mar 3, 2026, 04:25 PM 19 hrs ago

Chat at your own risk! Data brokers are selling deeply personal bot transcripts

https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/03/chatbot_data_harvesting_personal_info/

AI conversations for sale include sensitive health and legal details

Your latest chat transcript could be bought and sold. Data brokers are selling access to sensitive personal data captured during chatbot conversations, despite claims that the data is anonymized and obtained with consent.

. . .

People install browser extensions that purport to offer free VPN service or ad blocking or some other capability, likely without reading or understanding the extension's privacy policy.

These extensions may silently intercept users' communications with AI services like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and DeepSeek. They can do so by overriding the browser's native fetch() and XMLHttpRequest() functions in order to capture every prompt and every response.

. . .

The most damning finding, he said in his report, is that "healthcare workers are pasting real patient data into AI chatbots, and that data is now a commercial database."

. . .

The result, the report claims, is that customers of these data brokers can search and find conversations about suicide, medical records that may enable identification, HIV lab results, abortion clinic searches, immigration status disclosures, domestic violence narratives, and children's conversations.

. . .

9 replies

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Chat at your own risk! Data brokers are selling deeply personal bot transcripts (Original Post) erronis 19 hrs ago OP

8 Million Users' AI Conversations Sold for Profit by "Privacy" Extensions Tasmanian Devil 19 hrs ago #1

Thanks for adding this. It's clear that the browser extensions are not well vetted. erronis 19 hrs ago #2

And that's why... 2naSalit 18 hrs ago #3

Let me know what you find. Some older technologies might work: smoke signals, flags, marathon runners, ... erronis 18 hrs ago #4

All I can think of is... 2naSalit 18 hrs ago #5

I think you're right. Ham/shortwave is independent of the internet networks. erronis 18 hrs ago #6

Well... 2naSalit 17 hrs ago #7

I grok U. erronis 17 hrs ago #8

Good point! 2naSalit 17 hrs ago #9

Tasmanian Devil

(124 posts)

1. 8 Million Users' AI Conversations Sold for Profit by "Privacy" Extensions

Reply to erronis (Original post)

Tue Mar 3, 2026, 04:49 PM

19 hrs ago

This isn't just a hypothetical. 8 million people are being spied on .. that they've uncovered.

The news article points to this more detailed report:

https://www.koi.ai/blog/urban-vpn-browser-extension-ai-conversations-data-collection

The identical AI harvesting functionality appears in seven other extensions from the same publisher, across both Chrome and Edge:

Chrome Web Store:

Urban VPN Proxy - 6,000,000 users
1ClickVPN Proxy - 600,000 users
Urban Browser Guard - 40,000 users
Urban Ad Blocker - 10,000 users

Microsoft Edge Add-ons:

Urban VPN Proxy - 1,323,622 users
1ClickVPN Proxy - 36,459 users
Urban Browser Guard - 12,624 users
Urban Ad Blocker - 6,476 users

Total affected users: Over 8 million.

The extensions span different product categories, a VPN, an ad blocker, a "browser guard" security tool, but share the same surveillance backend. Users installing an ad blocker have no reason to expect their Claude conversations are being harvested.

All of these extensions carry "Featured" badges from their respective stores, except Urban Ad Blocker for Edge. These badges signal to users that the extensions have been reviewed and meet platform quality standards. For many users, a Featured badge is the difference between installing an extension and passing it by - it's an implicit endorsement from Google and Microsoft.

erronis

(23,465 posts)

2. Thanks for adding this. It's clear that the browser extensions are not well vetted.

Reply to Tasmanian Devil (Reply #1)

Tue Mar 3, 2026, 05:05 PM

19 hrs ago

Even ones that have been in existence for years and are trusted can be taken over by the evil-doers. Frequently developers cease working and updating their extensions and the source repository changes ownership.

2naSalit

(101,873 posts)

3. And that's why...

Reply to erronis (Original post)

Tue Mar 3, 2026, 05:30 PM

18 hrs ago

I'm glad I made many choices in the past that leaves me here today feeling good that I have nothing to do with those, never signed up for anything but here. I am trying to come up with a way to communicate when the gov'mint decides we can't talk to each other anymore.

erronis

(23,465 posts)

4. Let me know what you find. Some older technologies might work: smoke signals, flags, marathon runners, ...

Reply to 2naSalit (Reply #3)

Tue Mar 3, 2026, 05:47 PM

18 hrs ago

Seriously. We are so dependent on messages over the internet. Even our "land lines" are internet protocol based now. I don't trust this gummint to do the right thing at all.

I wrote an OP a couple of weeks ago on "barbed-wire networks". Might work for those that have huge ranches and barbed wire.

2naSalit

(101,873 posts)

5. All I can think of is...

Reply to erronis (Reply #4)

Tue Mar 3, 2026, 05:51 PM

18 hrs ago

HAM radio or shortwave, those aren't the same are they? I know so little about radios and that's sad because I use to use two-ways a lot.

erronis

(23,465 posts)

6. I think you're right. Ham/shortwave is independent of the internet networks.

Reply to 2naSalit (Reply #5)

Tue Mar 3, 2026, 06:01 PM

18 hrs ago

I believe that many ham messaging is now using the IP (Internet Protocol) but it's over the radio waves.

I think I know that foreign agents use it to transmit/receive coded messages without risk of interception/interpretation. It is much slower and prone to environmental interference (or intentional blocking).

I'll need to find my old Boy Scout Morse Code handbook!