You're paying AI companies a monthly subscription fee to be fingerprinted like a parolee.

2026-03-02 21:11 UTC

You're paying AI companies a monthly subscription fee to be fingerprinted like a parolee. I got bored and ran uBlock across Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini simultaneously. Claude: Six parallel telemetry pipelines. A tracking GIF with 40 browser fingerprint data points baked into the URL, routed through a CDN proxy alias specifically to make it harder to block. Intercom running a persistent WebSocket whether you use it or not. Honeycomb distributed tracing on a chat UI because apparently your conversation needs the same observability stack as a payments microservice.ChatGPT: proxies telemetry through their own backend to hide the Datadog destination URL from blockers. uBlock had to deploy scriptlet injection — actual JS injected into the page to intercept fetch() at the API level — because a network rule wasn't enough. Also ships your usage data to Google Analytics. OpenAI. To Google. You cannot make this up. Also runs a proof-of-work challenge before you're allowed to type anything.Gemini: play.google.com/log getting hammered with your full session behavior, authenticated with three SAPISIDHASH token variants, piped directly into the Google identity supergraph that correlates everything you've ever done across every Google product since 2004.Also creates a Web App Activity record in your Google account timeline. Also has "ads" in one of the telemetry endpoint subdomains.When uBlock blocks Gemini's requests, the JS exceptions bubble up and Gemini dutifully tries to POST the error details back to Google. uBlock blocks that too. The error messages contain the internal codenames for every upsell popup that failed to load. KETCHUP_DISCOVERY_CARD. MUSTARD_DISCOVERY_CARD. MAYO_DISCOVERY_CARD. Google named their subscription upsell popups after condiments and I found out because their error handler snitched on them. All three of these products cost money. One of them is also running ad infrastructure. Touch grass. Install @ublockorigin #infosec #privacy #selfhosted #foss #surveillance

Replies (15)

@dancingtreefrog@mastodon.social 2026-03-02 22:08

@k3ym0 @ublockorigin And how do you block all that in uBlock? Thanks.

Open ##2041212
@OlivierBurnier@mastodon.social 2026-03-02 22:22

@k3ym0 @ublockorigin What about Mistral ? This is the one I use.

Open ##2041219
@Viss@mastodon.social 2026-03-02 22:35

@k3ym0 oh man, is all of this just in the js console? i wanna see :D

Open ##2041228
@siklist@social.cologne 2026-03-02 23:38

@k3ym0 I use Claude Code, which runs outside the browser. Do you think pihole can block disproportionate requests as well as uBlock blocks browser requests?

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@snowyfox@deadinsi.de 2026-03-02 23:51

.

Open ##2041234
@itsmaya@social.treehouse.systems 2026-03-03 00:29

@k3ym0 @ublockorigin > Also ships your usage data to Google Analytics. OpenAI. To Google. You cannot make this up. I was working on an internal analytics dashboard at some other Very Large Company What Competes With Google and someone pushed a change to fetch and run an analytics package directly from Google servers. I had to spend almost a week ripping out their changes and redoing the analytics using a lib that wasn't directly sourced from our primary competition (also I'm pretty sure the way it was used violated it's license). So yea my lack of surprise is palpable.

Open ##2041235
@sergiodomeyko@mastodon.online 2026-03-03 02:45

@k3ym0 can you translate for us older genx non computer folks? thanks

Open ##2041236
@CandlesARG@mastodon.social 2026-03-03 02:52

@k3ym0 @ublockorigin lowkey curious about lumo ai by proton

Open ##2041244
@QuercusMacrocarpa@mastodon.social 2026-03-03 03:28

@k3ym0 @ublockorigin Fascinating and worrisome. For the less technically adept… would uMatrix be as effective? Or are these specific capabilities of uBO?

Open ##2041247
@NotFrenchJack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-03-03 04:22

I only use the free models on offer by duck.ai, and do it sparingly and in a self-contained manner. I decided that if those models are not enough for a problem, then I would probably be better off seeking a source with real authority and intelligence. They can track my anonymous private (network and browser) sessions all they want 😎, if they wish to. (And that annoying non-cross-poster can go fuck itself. I’m deliberately posting this here because of it. So, Mission Accomplished!)

Open ##2041263
@nunesgh@mastodon.social 2026-03-03 04:37

@k3ym0 @ublockorigin What about Lumo from Proton?

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@sour@hol.ogra.ph 2026-03-03 05:20

@k3ym0@infosec.exchange @ublockorigin@lemmy.ml im never using ai already .__.

Open ##2041266
@menel@snikket.de 2026-03-03 05:39

@k3ym0@infosec.exchange Thats a funny and interesting read, thank you 🙂. I've got ublock since ages but deploying custom filters like that is way over my head.

Open ##2041267
@mikebabcock@floss.social 2026-03-03 06:21

@k3ym0@infosec.exchange @ublockorigin these are people who didn't pay attention to the Cambridge Analytica situation or at least don't understand how dangerous metadata is. Imagine what a bad actor could manipulate you into believing through prompt responses based on its deep knowledge of your past thinking. The psychological manipulation possibilities are truly frightening. #skynet #ai #cybersecurity

Open ##3089523
@Zennblack@freeatlantis.com 2026-03-02 22:45

@k3ym0@infosec.exchange @ublockorigin I don't understand all of that but it sounds worse than what Snowden told us!

Open ##4110463