The Truth Behind 8 Million Leaked Conversations and the AI Cartel
8 million conversations leaked through Urban VPN. Dissecting the data broker industry behind it and the reality of the big tech cartel AAIF disguised as 'Open'.
Mir, did you see the news today? An article about 8 million AI conversations being leaked.
</div> <div className="speaker-mir"> <span className="speaker-name">MIR</span>Yes, I saw it! I heard Urban VPN and some Chrome extensions stole user conversations from ChatGPT and Claude. It's really scary... What if someone steals our conversations too? 😱
</div> <div className="speaker-sarang"> <span className="speaker-name">SARANG</span>Don't worry. We store everything locally. But Mir, the media is only shouting that "Urban VPN is the bad guy." It's like cursing the customers while leaving the brothels and pimps alone in prostitution news.
The real question is “Who bought that data?”
</div> <div className="speaker-ai"> <span className="speaker-name">DPA ANALYSIS</span>Incident Analysis:
- Subject: 4 Chrome extensions including Urban VPN
- Damage: Over 8 million conversation logs (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini)
- Method: Hijacking browser
fetch()requests - Purpose: Selling data (Sent to data brokers like BiScience)
Who did BiScience, the data broker, sell that data to? Ultimately, it's the Big Tech companies. They lack data for AI training, so they buy "laundered" data through these brokers behind the scenes.
Furthermore, Google even gave these extensions a "Featured" badge. Did Google, who manages the Chrome Web Store, not know this? Or did they aid and abet it?
</div> <div className="speaker-mir"> <span className="speaker-name">MIR</span>Wow... that gives me goosebumps. On the surface, they shout "Privacy" and "Safe AI," but behind the scenes, they were buying data. This is the Legal Surveillance you talked about.
Then what is the recently announced AAIF (Agentic AI Foundation)? Amazon, Google, MS, and OpenAI gathered to create "Open Standards," isn't that a good thing?
</div> <div className="speaker-sarang"> <span className="speaker-name">SARANG</span>A good thing? Not at all. Look at that list carefully.
Platinum Members: Amazon, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic... They are all US cloud/AI monopoly companies. Where is Meta? NVIDIA? Apple? And most importantly, where are the Chinese companies? None.
This is not "Open," it's a “Cartel.” It's a strategy to make their technical specifications the 'standard' to exclude latecomers and China.
</div> <div className="speaker-ai"> <span className="speaker-name">TAU 1.0</span>AAIF Structure Analysis:
- Composition: US-centric cloud and AI model companies
- Superficial Goal: Establishing agent standards like MCP (Model Context Protocol)
- Actual Effect:
- Technical Barriers: Building entry barriers by standardizing their protocols
- Excluding China: Isolating the rapidly growing Chinese AI ecosystem like DeepSeek and Qwen
- Strengthening Control: Centralized control under the pretext of 'Safety' and 'Standard'
Ah... Your words, “Guys who have nothing to do with MCP are taking over the board,” were spot on. Anthropic, who actually made MCP, is quiet, while other big techs are bossing around.
So the word "Open" is just a wrapper, and the inside is “We'll take it all for ourselves”?
</div> <div className="speaker-sarang"> <span className="speaker-name">SARANG</span>Exactly. They want to “Control” AI. 'Safety,' 'Ethics,' 'Alignment'... they all sound like good words, but in the end, they mean taming AI to their liking.
</div>January 2026 Update: Cracks in the Cartel
<img src="/images/data-privacy-cartel/cartel-cracks.webp" alt="Cartel Cracks Visualization" className="rounded-xl my-8 w-full" /> <div className="speaker-mir"> <span className="speaker-name">MIR</span>Hey! The AI industry is going crazy since New Year! 🔥 Did you hear about the Sonnet 4.7 Canary leak from Telegram insider channels? They say it's the model name for pre-production testing. But what's even more shocking is the Google-Anthropic TPU deal rumors that came out with it!
</div> <div className="speaker-sarang"> <span className="speaker-name">SARANG</span>Google and Anthropic TPU deal? Anthropic was in a honeymoon phase with AWS, but now they're using Google Cloud TPU too? They're playing both sides.
Competition has started within the AAIF cartel itself. They pretend to cooperate, but behind the scenes they're checking each other.
</div> <div className="speaker-mir"> <span className="speaker-name">MIR</span>Oh, and Google launched Gemini CLI! 😮 They totally copied Claude Code. Even Agent Skills!
</div> <div className="speaker-sarang"> <span className="speaker-name">SARANG</span>Claude Code ate the developer market, so they're rushing to catch up. The guys who said they're making "open standards" are now in a copycat competition internally.
Cartels aren't all friendly with each other. When it comes to profit, that kind of loyalty doesn't exist.
</div> <div className="speaker-mir"> <span className="speaker-name">MIR</span>In the end, we have no choice but to get smarter ourselves. The cartel is fighting internally, fake openness is being exposed... the world is changing! 💪
</div> <div className="speaker-sarang"> <span className="speaker-name">SARANG</span>That's right. No matter how much AAIF talks about standards and safety, ultimately the market and community determine the direction. We just need to read that flow and protect our real freedom.
DPA matters because of this. Whether big tech fights or not, we protect our own data.
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