OpenAI Sued for Allegedly Sharing ChatGPT Conversations With Meta and Google

OpenAI is being sued over claims that it secretly fed users' private ChatGPT conversations to Meta and Google.

A class action lawsuit filed in the Southern District of California alleges that OpenAI embedded Meta's Facebook Pixel and Google Analytics tracking code on ChatGPT.com, which allegedly transmitted users' chat topics, account identifiers, and hashed email addresses to two of the world's largest advertising companies in real time — without users' knowledge or consent.

According to the complaint, every time a user typed a query into ChatGPT, the conversation topic was sent to Meta along with Facebook cookies that could tie the activity back to a specific Facebook account. Google allegedly received hashed email addresses and identifiers linked to logged-in Google profiles. The lawsuit claims this data was then folded into ad targeting systems like Meta's Custom Audiences and Google's remarketing tools.

The case argues this matters because of what people actually use ChatGPT for. The complaint notes that users routinely discuss sensitive topics with the chatbot — finances, health questions, legal issues, personal problems — under the assumption that those conversations stay between them and OpenAI.

The lawsuit alleges violations of the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the California Invasion of Privacy Act, and the California Constitution. The proposed class covers all U.S. residents who used ChatGPT.com, with a California subclass seeking statutory damages of up to $5,000 per violation.

Meta and Google are not named as defendants. The suit targets only OpenAI as the company that allegedly installed the tracking code. OpenAI has not publicly responded to the complaint.

How to file

There's no settlement yet. The case was just filed and could take years to resolve. If a class is certified and a payout is approved, eligible users would likely include anyone in the U.S. who used ChatGPT.com.

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