ChatGPT Free Users Tracked: OpenAI's New Ad Policy

ChatGPT free users are now being tracked for advertising by default. OpenAI has quietly updated its privacy policy, enabling marketing cookies without users opting in. This means your free ChatGPT activity, like how often you use it and which features you interact with, is now being collected. OpenAI is sharing some of this data with marketing partners and using it to promote its own products across the web. While your actual chat content isn't shared with advertisers, the metadata about your usage is now part of a marketing strategy. This shift helps OpenAI turn its massive free user base into revenue, funding the expensive operation of running AI systems. The bottom line: if you're a free ChatGPT user, your online behavior is now contributing to OpenAI's ad-targeting efforts, and you might start seeing more tailored upgrade prompts.