OpenAI just pulled ChatGPT's web browsing feature
OpenAI just disabled the Browse with Bing beta in ChatGPT after discovering users were using it to bypass paywalls. When asked for a specific URL's full text, the bot inadvertently served gated articles for free. OpenAI took it down to fix the loophole and respect content owners.
ChatGPT just lost its web browsing superpower, at least for now.
OpenAI disabled the Browse with Bing beta feature in ChatGPT, just two months after introducing it in May. The culprit was a loophole that let users bypass media paywalls.
A backdoor for paywalled articles
According to reports via Windows Central, users realized that if you asked ChatGPT for the full text of a specific URL, it would fetch and display the whole thing, effectively ignoring publisher paywalls.
OpenAI acknowledged the issue, explaining that the Browse beta could occasionally display content in unintended ways. The company stated it turned off the feature to do right by content owners and is working to bring it back as quickly as possible.
Why it matters
If you were relying on ChatGPT to sneak past subscription paywalls, that trick is officially dead for everyday users.
More broadly, this was an urgent fire OpenAI had to put out. AI developers are already under intense pressure from publishers over copyright. Allowing a flagship tool to act as a built-in paywall scraper would have invited immediate legal trouble.
In our view, OpenAI moved swiftly because it simply had no choice. But it also highlights the messy reality of web-connected AI: teaching a bot where legitimate research ends and unauthorized scraping begins is far harder than it looks.
Sources (1)
- theverge.com(opens in a new tab)Originaltheverge.com