A data deletion service called Optery recently updated its terms of service to say the company may transfer user data to OpenAI, and turned on the data transfer for users by default. After a privacy-focused forum spotted the change and decided to no longer recommend Optery to its readers, Optery backtracked and made the data transfer opt-in only.
âOptery specifically selected OpenAI because we were searching for a powerful AI model that we wouldnât have to pre-train or fine-tune with our customerâs data,â Lawrence Gentilello, Opteryâs founder and CEO, told 404 Media in an email on Monday.
Optery is in the data removal or deletion industry, which aims to remove customersâ personal data from Google and people search sites. Often companies do this by filing removal requests to data brokers on their customersâ behalf.