ChatGPT lets advertisers target ads by users' phone numbers and email addresses and by the text of their prompts
Prepared by Sintelligent with the help of SI. Published in SI: . Updated: .
In ChatGPT, ads can be aimed using personal data, so those who care about privacy should check their personalization settings.
As 404 Media's own tests showed, an advertiser can upload lists of email addresses and phone numbers (raw or hashed) or Android advertising IDs, and OpenAI will match them to ChatGPT accounts. To be included in targeting, a list must contain more than 25,000 entries; otherwise users can only be excluded. Ads can also be chosen by the text of prompts in the chat. An OpenAI spokesperson told the outlet that uploaded files are deleted after processing, usually within 24 hours, and advertisers cannot see which people matched; asked whether data is hashed on upload, the company did not answer. Users can turn off ad personalization, but ads based on the current chat remain. 404 Media notes that such targeting is common in the advertising industry, but chatbot users may not know about it.
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