Microsoft Edge may be leaking the websites you visit to Bing, report suggests

Microsoft Edge may have a serious privacy flaw in it. According to a Reddit user, the browser is allegedly sending the URLs of websites that the user is visiting to its Bing API site. As per The Verge, the company is investigating the matter.

The issue was first brought to the attention by a Reddit user Hackermchackface which stated, “Searching for references to this URL gives very few results, no documentation on this feature at all.” The Verge in its report states that Reddit users were unable to identify the exact cause of the privacy issue. But Rafael Rivera - a software engineer says that the issue occured due to a “poorly implemented new feature in Edge."

“Microsoft Edge now has a creator follow feature that is enabled by default,” Rivera told The Verge. “It appears the intent was to notify Bing when you’re on certain pages, such as YouTube, The Verge, and Reddit. But it doesn’t appear to be working correctly, instead sending nearly every domain you visit to Bing,” he added.

The feature, as per the report, was first tested in 2022 before rolling out to Edge users recently. It allows users to follow their favorite content creators on YouTube and across the web. If a user disables the said feature, Edge will no longer send the URLs to bingapis.com.

Caitlin Roulston, director of communications at Microsoft, in a statement to The Verge said “We’re aware of reports, are investigating and will take appropriate action to address any issues.”

Earlier this year, Microsoft rolled out AI-powered Bing on its search and browser apps on mobile. The preview was first released on February 7 for desktop users and was eventually expanded to mobile app users later. Microsoft also released Bing for Skype to provide quick and informative responses to user queries during group chats.