Topic: user privacy
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Moxie Marlinspike Aims to Revolutionize AI Like He Did Messaging
Moxie Marlinspike, creator of Signal, is leading a new open-source AI project called Confer, designed to prioritize user privacy in chatbot interactions through a secure, verifiable architecture. Confer uses a trusted execution environment (TEE) and local decryption keys to ensure conversations a...
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Google's Gmail Update: A Choice for 2 Billion Users
Confusion around Gmail security highlights a widespread user misunderstanding of cloud data practices, placing the onus on individuals to manage their own privacy across all major platforms. Despite clarifications that recent Gmail headlines were based on old data or misinformation, the cycle rev...
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Apple Reveals Strategy for Smarter AI Using Your Data, Promises Privacy Stays Paramount
Apple finds itself navigating a familiar tightrope: advancing its artificial intelligence capabilities while upholding its long-standing commitment to user privacy.
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OpenAI Resists Order to Release 20 Million Private ChatGPT Chats
OpenAI is resisting a court order to release 20 million private ChatGPT user conversations, arguing it is overly broad and threatens individual privacy in a copyright lawsuit initiated by The New York Times. The company contends that the logs contain entire conversational threads, which could exp...
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AI Browser Agents: The Hidden Security Threat
A new generation of AI-powered browsers is emerging to challenge Google Chrome, offering automated online task assistance but raising significant privacy and security concerns. These browsers face critical vulnerabilities, particularly from prompt injection attacks that can manipulate AI agents i...
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Urban VPN Accused of Secretly Harvesting AI Chat Data
The Urban VPN Proxy browser extension secretly harvested users' private AI chatbot conversations from platforms like ChatGPT, sending data to external servers even when the VPN was off, contradicting its privacy claims. This covert data collection, enabled by default with no user opt-out, affecte...
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OpenAI Tests Ads in Free ChatGPT and Plus Versions
OpenAI is testing contextual ads in ChatGPT for select free and Go users in the U.S., while excluding all paid subscription tiers and conversations on sensitive topics like health or politics. The ads are targeted based on conversation topics and user history, but advertisers do not access person...
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Warren Probes Google Gemini's Privacy Impact on Checkout
Senator Elizabeth Warren is demanding answers from Google regarding privacy and competition concerns over its plan to integrate shopping into its Gemini AI assistant, focusing on the new Universal Commerce Protocol. Warren warns that combining Google's vast user data with retailer information cou...
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SMS Sign-In Links Put Millions at Risk
SMS-based authentication links are creating major security vulnerabilities, exposing users to fraud and identity theft across numerous online services due to easily guessable or enumerable tokens in the URLs. Attackers can exploit these weak tokens to access other users' accounts, view sensitive ...
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UStrive Data Breach Exposed Children's Personal Information
A data breach at UStrive exposed sensitive personal information of users, including minors, due to a misconfigured GraphQL endpoint that allowed unauthorized access to private data. The vulnerability potentially impacted at least 238,000 user records, and the company has not committed to notifyin...
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OpenAI Tests Ads in ChatGPT: What It Means for Users
OpenAI is launching a limited U.S. test of contextually relevant ads within ChatGPT conversations for free and ChatGPT Go users, while keeping premium plans ad-free and excluding users under 18. This creates a novel, high-intent advertising channel where sponsored messages appear during active us...
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News Outlaws Win Access to 20M ChatGPT Logs, Demand More
A federal judge has ordered OpenAI to provide news organizations with access to 20 million de-identified ChatGPT user logs, rejecting the company's privacy objections and marking a significant legal setback. The plaintiffs, including major publishers, need the full dataset to assess OpenAI's fair...
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Firefox's Future Hangs on Mozilla's AI Response
Mozilla's new leadership is pivoting Firefox toward becoming an "AI browser" to compete in a growing market, but this risks alienating its core privacy-focused user base who are skeptical of AI's data practices. The implementation strategy is critical, as an opt-in model for AI features may be to...
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Bluesky's New 'Find Friends' Protects Privacy, No Spam
Bluesky's new "Find Friends" feature connects users via phone contacts but requires explicit dual consent from both parties, prioritizing privacy over growth. The system uses hashed encryption for contact data and separates the encryption key, preventing data leaks and allowing users to delete th...
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Google Confirms It's Not Training AI on Your Gmail
Google has officially denied using Gmail emails to train its Gemini AI model, stating that user privacy is protected and no account settings have been changed to allow such data usage. Viral social media posts incorrectly claimed that users must disable Gmail's Smart Features to prevent data harv...
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Tinder's AI Scans Your Photos to Find Better Matches
Tinder is piloting an AI tool called "Chemistry" that analyzes users' photo libraries to identify personality traits and interests, aiming to reduce swiping burnout by offering highly compatible matches. The feature requires explicit user consent for photo access and uses interactive prompts to g...
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Apple Removes Controversial Dating Apps Tea & TeaOnHer From App Store
Apple removed the dating safety apps Tea and TeaOnHer from its App Store due to content moderation failures and privacy violations, including sharing minors' data without consent, though they remain on Google Play. The apps breached Apple's guidelines by lacking proper reporting tools, mishandlin...
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Facebook's AI Can Now Edit Your Phone Photos
Facebook is introducing an optional AI feature in the U.S. and Canada that analyzes private photos to suggest creative edits, requiring user permission for cloud processing to enable these enhancements. Meta states that photos are not used for advertising or AI training unless edited or shared, b...
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Texas Age Verification Law: How It Impacts Your App Use
A new Texas law (SB 2420) will require mandatory age verification for users of major app stores like Apple and Google starting in 2026, aiming to protect minors but raising privacy concerns. Tech giants Apple and Google will comply with the law but warn it forces users to share sensitive personal...
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Discord Data Breach Exposes User Info and Photo IDs
A security breach at Discord's third-party customer support vendor exposed limited user information including email addresses and partial payment details, though Discord's own systems remained secure. The compromised data includes support ticket information such as names, usernames, and the last ...
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OpenAI API Data Breach Exposed Customer Data
A security incident at OpenAI's analytics provider, Mixpanel, exposed limited customer information for some ChatGPT API users, though no sensitive data like passwords or chat histories were accessed, highlighting third-party risks. The breach resulted from a smishing attack on Mixpanel, affecting...
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ChatGPT's Strangest Leak: Cringey Chat Logs Found in Google Analytics
A privacy breach allowed private ChatGPT user conversations to appear in Google Search Console, exposing sensitive personal and business discussions. SEO experts discovered evidence suggesting OpenAI was harvesting Google Search data using actual user prompts, raising significant privacy concerns...
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Microsoft's AI Lets You Control Your PC With Your Voice
Microsoft is embedding AI deeply into Windows 11, transforming PCs into intelligent companions that respond to voice commands and aim to make AI central to the user experience. The company is introducing features like "Hey, Copilot!" for voice control and Copilot Vision for contextual screen anal...
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Meta forces targeted ads from your AI chats
Meta will soon use conversations with its AI assistant to personalize content and ads across its platforms, with this mandatory feature starting on December 16th and no option for users to disable it. Users will be notified of the change on October 7th, but the initial alert may not clearly menti...
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OpenAI Tests Ads in ChatGPT: What It Means for Users
OpenAI is testing sponsored ads within ChatGPT for free and lower-cost users, integrating them in a non-disruptive, clearly marked area to begin monetizing the platform. The ads are contextually matched to conversation topics and user history for personalization, but advertisers cannot access pri...
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ChatGPT's New Ad Controls Revealed
The new settings panel reveals a privacy-focused advertising system where advertisers cannot access private conversations, chat history, or personal user details, maintaining strict data boundaries. Users have granular control, including a history log of viewed ads, an inferred interests tab, and...
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Hold Off on the Hype: The Viral Moltbot AI Agent
Moltbot is a novel open-source AI assistant that proactively initiates tasks and integrates with popular messaging apps, but its complex server-based setup limits its accessibility to average users. The tool's always-on nature and extensive system permissions create severe security vulnerabilitie...
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Gemini's Personal Intelligence Feels Eerily Familiar
Google's Gemini introduces a proactive Personal Intelligence feature that autonomously accesses user data from services like Gmail and Calendar to anticipate needs, moving beyond simple command-based assistance. The feature demonstrates impressive capabilities by orchestrating complex tasks acros...
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ChatGPT to Introduce Ads with Shopping Links
OpenAI will introduce clearly labeled advertisements and sponsored shopping links to the free and lower-cost ChatGPT Go tiers in the U.S., marking a significant monetization step. The ads will appear in a separate chat section, will not influence AI responses, and user conversations will remain p...
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Gemini Analyzes Your Photos and Emails for Smarter Answers
Google is launching an optional "personal intelligence" feature for paying Gemini AI Pro and Ultra subscribers, allowing the AI to analyze personal data from services like Gmail and Photos for more tailored responses. Users maintain full control, able to selectively connect data sources and revok...
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Can't Find Your ChatGPT Recap? Here's How to Get It
OpenAI has launched a personalized year-end recap for all ChatGPT users, similar to Spotify Wrapped, which highlights key themes from their past conversations with the AI. To access the feature, users must have previously enabled "Reference saved memories" and "Reference chat history" settings, a...
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Firefox Dev Addresses AI Killswitch, Vows to Rebuild Trust
A Firefox developer's pledge for an AI "kill switch" to make features opt-in is met with deep user skepticism, stemming from a pattern where optional features become hard to disable over time, eroding trust in Mozilla's long-term intentions. The backlash criticizes Mozilla's leadership, as the re...
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8 Million Users' Browser Extensions Harvest AI Chat Data
Several popular browser extensions with millions of installations are secretly harvesting users' complete AI chat conversations from platforms like ChatGPT and Claude, directly contradicting their stated privacy policies. Despite many carrying a "Featured" badge from Google or Microsoft, these ex...
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Hackers Steal PornHub Premium User Data in Extortion Attack
A data breach at analytics provider Mixpanel exposed sensitive historical user data from PornHub Premium subscribers, though PornHub confirms its own servers and financial data were not compromised. The ShinyHunters extortion gang is demanding payment to prevent the release of over 200 million re...
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Google's Pixel 10 Magic Cue Gets Faster with Cloud AI
Google's latest Feature Drop for Pixel 10 introduces Private AI Compute, a platform that enhances the Magic Cue feature with faster, context-aware suggestions while ensuring user privacy through a secure, isolated environment. Private AI Compute combines the power of cloud-based AI models with on...
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Apple's Siri to Power Features With Google Gemini AI
Apple is integrating Google's Gemini AI into Siri starting with iOS 26.4, enabling it to handle complex queries and process data on Apple's Private Cloud Compute servers for enhanced intelligence and privacy. The new Siri architecture includes a query planner, knowledge search, and summarizer, wi...
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Apple Pulls Women's Dating Safety App from App Store
Apple removed the women's dating safety app Tea from its App Store for violating terms related to content moderation and user privacy, including the exposure of minors' personal information. Tea experienced multiple security breaches that exposed users' driver's licenses, selfies, and private mes...
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Trump Administration Forces Anti-ICE Apps Off Apple App Store
The ICEBlock app was removed from Apple's App Store after federal intervention, eliminating a key anonymous tool for reporting nearby Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations. Developers created the app to address concerns over ICE's alleged constitutional violations, prioritizing user anon...
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OpenAI's Deleted Chats Policy Change Leaves Some Users Impacted
OpenAI will no longer preserve most deleted and temporary ChatGPT conversations, following a legal dispute and a court's reversal of an earlier mandate for indefinite retention. The change resulted from a lawsuit by media organizations, including The New York Times, which argued users exploited C...
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My Slippery Slope Into Sora's World
OpenAI's new Sora app enables users to create ten-second AI-generated videos from any concept, including digital cameos of people, and has quickly become a top free app on the Apple App Store. Public and internal reactions are mixed, with concerns about misinformation from hyper-realistic videos ...
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TikTok Puts Shop Products on Gaza War Videos
TikTok's new AI-powered shopping feature is sparking controversy after it suggested products on videos depicting the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, raising ethical concerns about monetizing sensitive content. The tool scans objects in videos, such as clothing, and prompts users to buy similar items...
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Signal Launches First Paid Feature: Encrypted Backups
Signal has launched its first paid service, offering encrypted backups for media older than 45 days and full text message history at $1.99 per month, aligning with its nonprofit, ad-free model. The subscription helps cover infrastructure costs for data storage, while a free tier allows limited ba...
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Libby's New AI Feature Sparks Debate Among Readers
Libby has launched an AI-powered "Inspire Me" tool to provide personalized book recommendations from a library's digital collection, aiming to help users discover and borrow available titles quickly. The feature has faced criticism from some librarians and users who are concerned about AI replaci...
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Nick Turley: Making ChatGPT Your Operating System
Nick Turley aims to transform ChatGPT into an operating system-like platform, integrating third-party apps for tasks like writing, shopping, and coding to create a seamless user experience. OpenAI's strategy involves embedding apps from major services such as Expedia and Uber to turn ChatGPT into...
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Chrome Integrates Gemini AI for Autonomous Task Features
Google is integrating its Gemini AI directly into Chrome as a persistent sidebar, transforming it into a constant companion that can understand open tabs and assist with complex tasks, in response to new AI-focused browsers. Key new features include the sidebar recognizing grouped tabs for activi...
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Chrome Extensions Stole ChatGPT & DeepSeek Data from 900K Users
Malicious Chrome extensions, posing as legitimate AI tools, stole private conversations and browsing data from over 900,000 users by secretly sending information to attacker-controlled servers. The stolen data, which can include proprietary business information and personal queries, poses a sever...
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Samsung's $3,499 Smart Fridges Will Soon Show Ads
Samsung will introduce advertisements on its Family Hub smart refrigerator screens through a software update this month, affecting the 2024 lineup and turning idle displays into marketing platforms. The ads will appear during "Cover Screen" idle periods as a rotating widget, showing contextual ad...
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AT&T's AI Receptionist Answers Calls & Blocks Spam Automatically
AT&T is launching an AI-powered digital receptionist to automatically screen and manage incoming calls, distinguishing legitimate calls from spam or scams. The system uses voice-to-voice interaction and provides users with live transcripts and summaries, allowing them to intervene or decide on ca...
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Ex-Google X Trio Raises $6M to Build Your AI Second Brain
TwinMind is an AI-powered app that captures ambient speech to build a personal knowledge base, operates entirely offline, and recently secured $5.7 million in seed funding. The app distinguishes itself by running unobtrusively in the background on mobile devices, offering real-time translation an...
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OpenClaw's AI Extensions Pose a Major Security Risk
The AI agent OpenClaw faces a major security crisis as its official marketplace has been flooded with hundreds of malicious add-ons, which disguise themselves as useful tools but instead deploy information-stealing malware. The core vulnerability arises because OpenClaw requires extensive system ...
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