Browser extensions with more than 8 million installs are harvesting usersâ complete and extended AI conversations and selling them for marketing purposes, according to data collected from the Google and Microsoft pages hosting them.
Security firm Koi discovered the eight extensions, which as of late Tuesday night remained available in both Googleâs and Microsoftâs extension stores. Seven of them carry âFeaturedâ badges, which are endorsements meant to signal that the companies have determined the extensions meet their quality standards. The free extensions provide functions such as VPN routing to safeguard online privacy and ad blocking for ad-free browsing. All provide assurances that user data remains anonymous and isnât shared for purposes other than their described use.
A gold mine for marketers and data brokers
An examination of the extensionsâ underlying code tells a much more complicated story. Each contains eight of what Koi calls âexecutorâ scripts, with each being unique for ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and five other leading AI chat platforms. The scripts are injected into webpages any time the user visits one of these platforms. From there, the scripts override browsersâ built-in functions for making network requests and receiving responses.
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