how it happened
- whodefault settingmessages used for training
- the gapcustomers enrolledwithout choosing
- the resultpublic backlashpolicy clarified
what everyone assumed
A trusted platform feels like a custodian, holding your data to serve you, not to learn from. The assumption is that using your content for the vendor’s models would be opt-in, announced, and obviously toggled, not the silent default.
what happened
There was no in-app switch. The opt-out existed only as an email to a particular address that few customers knew to send. The training was for non-generative features, but the posture was the same: your messages, enrolled by default, with the burden to leave placed on you.
step by step
- messages are enrolled in model training by defaultFor non-generative features.the assumption breaks here
- opting out takes an email to one addressNo in-app switch.
- May 2024the policy surfaces and a backlash follows
how it surfaced
In May 2024 researchers and customers surfaced the policy and a public backlash followed. The episode put a number on a quiet truth: the default disposition of a whole customer base’s data had been set without most of them choosing it.
A vendor’s default is a decision made for you until you find it and change it.
What a SaaS tool may do with your data lives in terms nobody reads, and silence in those terms is not the same as restraint.
picture it at a company like yours
The company here is made up. The other two paths are not: they happened, and each links to the story.
- in this storythe day it mattersSomeone reads the terms and the story spreads.what it costs youYour messages were part of a programme nobody at your company chose.
- or it goes like thisit happenedSamsung, 2023howEngineers paste code and notes into a free chatbot to get help.what leavesconfidential code and meeting noteswho ends up with itan AI vendor on consumer terms
- or it goes like thisit happenedDeepSeek exposed database, 2025howThe AI vendor leaves its own database open.what leaveseveryone's chats and the vendor's keyswho ends up with itanyone on the internet
sources
your turn
what you can do about it
this week
Read the data-use terms of your three most-used platforms.
The tools your company already trusts have data-use terms you agreed to without reading, and some of those defaults favor the vendor. Slack is the reminder to actually read them. Knowing what each core platform may do with your content is a vetting question with a deadline you set.
go deeper
if you're not sure where to start
Run the offboarding checklist on one leaver. It covers every account and token to close when someone leaves.
open the checklist →