A conversation title is the most compressed form of meaning you will ever give away.
Researchers at IMDEA Networks analysed the web and mobile clients of nine conversational AI services in a paper accepted for the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium. They found 124 third-party domains belonging to 44 organisations, 34 of them advertising and tracking services. Every service contacted at least one. And 3 of the 9 web clients leaked conversation titles to third parties.
124
Third-party domains, 44 organisations
34
Advertising and tracking services
3 / 9
Web clients leaking conversation titles
Source: Oliveira et al., “Prompt like a Butterfly, Sting like a Tracker”, IMDEA Networks, accepted for PETS.
Why the Title Matters More Than It Looks
A prompt is noisy: words, hesitation, typos. A title is what remains once the noise is removed: your intent, summarised for you in five words.
The prompt (form)
“hi, sorry if this is a dumb question, i started a new tablet last week and since yesterday i get this tight feeling in my chest, is that normal or…”
The title (meaning)
“Chest pain after new medication”
Illustrative example, not from the study.
A title like “Chest pain after new medication” or “Can I refuse these severance terms” says enough. Nobody needs your transcript once they hold your summary.
Privacy in Units of Meaning
Working with Vitali de Mille on the ideas behind GlyphAI, I measure privacy in units of meaning, not characters.
Redacting names from a prompt protects the form. The meaning leaves through the metadata.
A question for builders: when you audit what your product sends to third parties, do you audit for words, or for meaning?
Paper: Prompt like a Butterfly, Sting like a Tracker: A Privacy Analysis of Web and Mobile Conversational AI Agents (IMDEA Networks, accepted for the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium)