• by Ray Schultz , July 4, 2023

OpenAI has pulled its ChatGPT Browse with Bing feature over concerns that it might be helping people evade paywalls.  

“As of July 3, 2023, we’ve disabled the Browse with Bing beta feature out of an abundance of caution while we fix this in order to do right by content owners,” OpenAI writes on its site. 

The company explains that Browse with Bing “is a beta feature (available to ChatGPT Plus subscribers) that allows ChatGPT to search the internet to help answer questions that benefit from recent information.” 

However, the firm has learned that “the ChatGPT Browse beta can occasionally display content in ways we don't want. For example, if a user specifically asks for a URL's full text, it might inadvertently fulfill this request.” 

Windows Central reports that, “as illustrated on Reddit, several users were able to bypass these paywalls using ChatGPT by prompting the tool to print the several users were able to bypass these paywalls using ChatGPT by prompting the tool to print the text on an article behind a paywall.  

OpenAi writes, “We are working to bring the beta back as quickly as possible, and appreciate your understanding!”