ChatGPT conversations are showing up on Google: Reports

OpenAI will be taking steps to prevent user conversations with ChatGPT from showing up in Google search engine results when they are filtered in certain ways, according to reports from TechCrunch.

The conversations that ranged from casual to highly personal showed up on Google, Bing, and other search engines, per the outlet.

This largely happened when a shareable ChatGPT link was made discoverable by the user.

OpenAI executive Dane Stuckey said that feature had been removed from ChatGPT and that it was a “short-lived experiment to help people discover useful conversations,” done on an opt-in basis.

“Ultimately we think this feature introduced too many opportunities for folks to accidentally share things they didn’t intend to, so we’re removing the option. We’re also working to remove indexed content from the relevant search engines. This change is rolling out to all users through tomorrow morning. Security and privacy are paramount for us, and we’ll keep working to maximally reflect that in our products and features,” said Stuckey on X on August 1.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman previously warned during a podcast episode with influencer and comedian Theo Von that those asking extremely personal questions of ChatGPT did not have privacy protections to prevent their interactions from being produced for legal proceedings, if needed.