Your AI Chatbot May Be Leaking Your Chats to Meta, TikTok and Google

Image: IMDEA Networks Institute

Claude (Anthropic) and ChatGPT (OpenAI) have stronger access controls—your chats aren't public unless you choose to share them. But they still transmit conversation URLs and identifying data like advertising cookies to Meta and Google. For Claude, that data goes to 11 advertising platforms through Anthropic's own servers, not through the browser, which is why an ad blocker won't stop it.

Perplexity removed its Meta tracker last month.

What you can do

The study acknowledges it hasn't proven that Meta or Google actually read anyone's chats. But the infrastructure to do so exists, and the data is being transmitted. "The studied LLMs offer privacy controls to limit conversation visibility, but may mislead users by implying stronger protections than are actually enforced," researchers argue. “While we do not yet have evidence that conversations are read by trackers, permalink dissemination and by extension the capability to read them exist, and therefore the potential risk.”

This isn't the first time AI platforms have faced scrutiny on privacy. Claude recently began requiring government ID verification for new subscribers—a move that drew backlash from the same privacy-conscious users who had switched from ChatGPT over surveillance concerns, as Decrypt reported last month.

For now, practical steps are limited. On Grok, restrict conversation visibility in settings and explicitly revoke any link you've already shared. On Claude, rejecting non-essential cookies at least disables the Meta Pixel. On Perplexity, set conversations to Private. On ChatGPT, rejecting cookies where possible reduces exposure, though Google Analytics still runs for free logged-in users.

If you want to go even deeper and be fully protected, our guide on AI Privacy may be a good resource to check.

The researchers plan to extend their analysis to Meta AI, Microsoft Copilot, and Google Gemini—which were excluded from this round because they operate as both AI providers and ad companies simultaneously, making the threat model more complicated.

The findings were submitted to Data Protection Authorities on April 13, 2026. xAI was notified on April 17. As of publication, no company has responded.