A California woman has sued OpenAI in federal court, alleging the company embedded Facebook Pixel and Google Analytics tracking codes into ChatGPT.com that silently transmitted users’ chat queries, user IDs, and email addresses to Meta (Nasdaq: META) and Google (Nasdaq: GOOGL) without consent — potentially exposing millions of people’s most sensitive conversations to two of the world’s largest advertising companies.
The complaint, filed Tuesday in the US District Court for the Southern District of California by plaintiff Amargo Couture and class action firm Bursor & Fisher, alleges OpenAI violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the California Invasion of Privacy Act, and the California Constitution by “incorporating technology owned by each third party into the code of its website.” The case is No. 3:26-cv-03000-H-GC.
Every time a user typed a query into ChatGPT, the Facebook Pixel embedded in the site automatically transmitted to Meta both the topic of the query and the user’s Facebook ID — through “c_user” and “fr” cookies. Users simultaneously logged into Facebook and Google accounts while using ChatGPT were particularly exposed: their queries could be linked directly to their social media identities. Google Analytics transmitted parallel data to Google.
All of it happened in real time, without notification, and without the consent required under California law.
The complaint notes ChatGPT is not a general search engine. Users routinely submit questions about finances, health conditions, legal problems, and personal relationships — categories of information that carry the highest privacy expectations. “So much information is put into ChatGPT that some sources estimate the average company leaks confidential material to ChatGPT hundreds of times per week,” the complaint states. Queries about a cancer diagnosis, a bankruptcy, or a custody dispute that users believed were private were allegedly being routed to Meta and Google in real time.
The lawsuit seeks injunctive relief and statutory damages of $5,000 per violation under California Penal Code § 637.2 — a figure that, applied across millions of ChatGPT users, represents potential liability in the billions. OpenAI has not responded. Meta and Google are not named as defendants; the suit targets only OpenAI as the party that incorporated the tracking technology.
This is one of the first federal class actions targeting AI chatbot data practices, but not the first of its kind. In early April, a nearly identical lawsuit was filed against Perplexity AI, alleging the same Facebook Pixel and Google DoubleClick mechanism — and adding that Perplexity’s “Incognito” mode did not stop the data flow.
Both cases follow announcements in 2025 from Meta and OpenAI that they would use data from their AI products to inform advertising.
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Courts across California have recently held Meta and Google liable in cases that circumvent Section 230 immunity by targeting platform design rather than content — signaling that the legal firewall tech companies have relied on for three decades is weakening. Bursor & Fisher, the firm behind the complaint, has won class action settlements against Apple, Samsung, Walmart, and Keurig.
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