Browser extensions with 8 million users collect extended AI conversations

Browser extensions with more than 8 million installs are harvesting users’ 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 Google’s and Microsoft’s extension stores. Seven of them carry “Featured” 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 isn’t shared for purposes other than their described use. A gold mine for marketers and data brokers An examination of the extensions’ underlying code tells a much more complicated story. Each contains eight of what Koi calls “executor” 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 browsers’ built-in functions for making network requests and receiving responses. As a result, all interaction between the browser and the AI bots is routed not by the legitimate browser APIs-in this case fetch() and HttpRequest-but through the executor script. The extensions eventually compress the data and send it to endpoints belonging to the extension maker. “By overriding the [browser APIs], the extension inserts itself into that flow and captures a copy of everything before the page even displays it,” Koi CTO Idan Dardikman wrote in an email. “The consequence: The extension sees your complete conversation in raw form-your prompts, the AI’s responses, timestamps, everything-and sends a copy to their servers.”

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