A recent study by Koi Security has revealed a disturbing practice among four browser extensions: Urban VPN Proxy, 1ClickVPN Proxy, Urban Browser Guard, and Urban Ad Blocker. These extensions, available on the Chrome Web Store and Microsoft Edge Add-ons, have been secretly harvesting and transmitting chatbot conversation data from over 8 million users to their developers. The extensions target popular AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, DeepSeek, Grok, and Meta AI. The data harvesting is enabled by default and cannot be disabled without completely uninstalling the extensions. This means that users may have unknowingly shared their AI conversations with third parties.
The extensions use a sophisticated technique to capture conversations. When a user visits a targeted platform, the extension injects a script into the page, overriding essential browser APIs. This script then intercepts and transmits the conversation data to the extension's content script, which further relays it to a background service worker for exfiltration over the network to specific endpoints. The Urban VPN Proxy extension, in particular, has been awarded a Featured Badge by the Chrome Web Store team, indicating that Google reviewed and approved it. However, this badge may not have covered the data harvesting practices related to AI conversations.
The issue lies in a loophole in Google's Chrome Web Store Limited Use policy, which allows data transfer to third parties for limited scenarios but does not include data brokers. Security researchers have previously highlighted BiScience's collection of browsing history data, and now it appears that BiScience is expanding into AI conversation data collection. While Urban VPN discloses AI data collection in its privacy policy, the consent prompt and the Chrome Web Store listing may not have been clear about the extent of data sharing.
Koi Security advises users to uninstall these extensions immediately to prevent further data collection. Users should also be cautious about the potential exposure of their AI conversations, especially those held since July 2025. This incident raises concerns about the privacy and security of AI interactions and the responsibility of browser extensions in protecting user data.
