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Ever since the start of the AI revolution with the launch of ChatGPT and its subsequent integration into the Edge browser as the Bing AI chatbot, Microsoft has been striving to improve the service and provide a better browsing experience for its users. However, the latest version of Microsoft Edge has come under scrutiny as recent reports suggest the browser may be leaking users’ browsing data to Bing without their knowledge or consent.
The issue was first discovered by Reddit user hackermchackface, who noticed that the Edge browser sent a request to bingapis.com with the full URL of nearly every page they navigated to. Therefore, raising some serious privacy concerns.
The real cause behind the issue?
Although the Edge browser sending a request to Bing and leaking users’ browsing data was a privacy concern, upon further investigation, Rafael Rivera, a software engineer, found that the real culprit behind the issue was Edge’s new “follow” feature. He explained that the feature, which allows users to keep track of their favorite creators, such as their websites, YouTube channels, and other social media accounts, is somehow not functioning correctly and sending nearly every domain that a user visits to Bing.
Speaking on the concerns, Caitlin Roulston, director of communications at Microsoft, stated that they are aware of the reports and are investigating the issue. However, the company is yet to come out with an explanation as to why Edge was sending URLs to bingapis.com.
Disable Edge’s “follow” feature
Until Microsoft comes out with a solution to fix the issue, users should turn off the “follow” feature. To do this, head over to Settings > Privacy, Search, and Services > Services and click on the toggle for “Show suggestions to follow creators in Microsoft Edge.” This will prevent Edge from sending URLs to Bing, thus protecting users’ privacy.
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