OpenAI has temporarily disabled the Browse feature of ChatGPT, its Bing-based search engine, after discovering a bug that allowed users to bypass paywalls on certain articles. The company took this step to address the issue and ensure fairness to content owners. ChatGPT’s Browse is currently in beta and accessible to subscribers of the ChatGPT Plus service.
The decision to halt the Browse feature appears to have been prompted by a Reddit post in late June. A member of the r/ChatGPT subreddit shared a screenshot showing how they were able to retrieve the full text of a paywalled article from The Atlantic using ChatGPT. The post gained significant attention, receiving thousands of upvotes and numerous comments speculating about the mechanism behind the paywall bypass.
Some Reddit users speculated that ChatGPT might rely on similar mechanisms used by online paywall removers, where the cached version of an article without a paywall is accessed for Search Engine Optimization purposes. Others suggested that ChatGPT could potentially ignore the code responsible for displaying paywall banners until a user signs up or logs in. The prevailing sentiment among users was to enjoy the access to paywalled content while it lasted.
Data scraping for training AI models has become a contentious issue in recent months, with social media platforms like Twitter implementing limits on the number of tweets users can read per day to combat data scraping. OpenAI has also faced legal challenges related to data scraping, including a class action lawsuit alleging the unauthorized collection of private user information for ChatGPT.
The temporary suspension of ChatGPT’s Browse feature reflects OpenAI’s commitment to resolving the bug and respecting the rights of content owners. As AI technology continues to evolve, finding a balance between access to information and protecting intellectual property rights remains a challenge for both developers and users.