OpenAI quietly enables marketing cookies by default for free ChatGPT users in Pivot to ad revenue
- Marijan Hassan - Tech Journalist
- 4 hours ago
- 2 min read
OpenAI has quietly updated its privacy policy to enable marketing cookies by default for millions of users on its free tier. The shift, which was formalized in an email to users on April 30, 2026, allows the company to share limited tracking data with advertising partners to promote its own products on third-party platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
The move marks a significant departure from OpenAI’s early history as a research-focused non-profit and signals its transition into a competitive consumer brand that utilizes standard ad-tech to convert its massive free user base into paying subscribers.
What is being shared?
OpenAI has been quick to clarify that the new policy does not grant advertisers access to the core of the ChatGPT experience. According to spokesperson Taya Christianson, the company is implementing strict "red lines" for data sharing:
Conversations are private: Chat content, prompts, and personal memories are not shared with marketing partners.
Limited identifiers: Data shared is restricted to "limited identifiers" such as cookie IDs, device IDs, and email addresses.
Purpose: The data is used to measure the effectiveness of OpenAI’s own ads (e.g., seeing if a user signs up for the "Pro" tier after seeing an ad elsewhere) and to personalize advertisements shown within OpenAI’s own services.
The "free tier" trade-off
The policy primarily affects the Free and Go ($8/month) tiers, which represent over 90% of ChatGPT's 800 million weekly active users. For these users, the "Marketing Privacy" setting is now on by default.
Paying users on the Pro, Team, and Enterprise plans are reportedly exempt from this automatic tracking, though some Pro users have noted receiving the policy update email, leading to confusion about whether the toggle was also flipped for them.
How to opt out
Privacy advocates have criticized the "opt-out" rather than "opt-in" approach, arguing that many users will be tracked without their explicit knowledge. If you wish to disable marketing tracking, you must manually change your settings:
Navigate to Settings in the ChatGPT app or web interface.
Select Data Controls.
Locate Marketing Privacy and toggle the setting to Off.
A necessary move for $100B ambitions?
The update follows the launch of OpenAI's advertising pilot program in February, which began showing sponsored responses and small banner ads at the bottom of the ChatGPT interface. With the company’s annual compute costs estimated to exceed $10 billion, analysts see the move as a financial necessity ahead of a rumored $1 trillion IPO.
"OpenAI is realizing that the 'free' user is an expensive asset to maintain," says one industry analyst. "If they can’t get you to pay for the model, they’re going to use your digital footprint to make sure you eventually do."
