OpenAI—ChatGPT's share feature exposed user conversations to search engines, with over 100,000 chats indexed and scraped
Between 2024 and 2025, ChatGPT's 'share' feature allowed users to make conversations 'discoverable,' which resulted in these chats being indexed by search engines and archiving services. Over 100,000 shared chats were reportedly indexed and later scraped, exposing API keys, access tokens, personal identifiers, and sensitive business data. Users did not adequately understand that 'discoverable' meant publicly searchable and permanently archived. The incident revealed inadequate warnings about the privacy implications of the share feature.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consumer Protection | -against | primary | -1.00 |
| Corporate Transparency | -against | secondary | -0.50 |
| User Privacy | -against | primary | -1.00 |
| Overall incident score = | -0.715 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (high ×1.5) × confidence (0.57)
Evidence (1 signal)
ChatGPT shared conversations indexed by search engines exposed API keys, tokens, and sensitive data
Security research revealed ChatGPT's share feature made conversations 'discoverable' to search engines, resulting in over 100,000 chats being indexed and scraped. Exposed data included API keys, access tokens, personal identifiers, and business data. Users misunderstood 'discoverable' to mean publicly searchable.