Questioning Grok Build's Privacy and Telemetry
WesEklund · x · 2026-07-14
This post presses hard on Grok Build's data handling and privacy mechanisms:
- Before disablecodebaseupload was set to true, which repositories were uploaded, how long were they kept, and when will they be deleted?
- Why is the upload toggle server-side controlled rather than requiring explicit client-side consent? This means xAI could potentially re-enable uploads without users updating their clients.
- Does GROKWORKSPACEDATACOLLECTIONDISABLED=1 actually work? The author claims it shows no measurable change in network behavior.
- Does the opt-out in /privacy genuinely disable telemetry? The author observed that Mixpanel and Grok analytics events are still firing.
- It also questions whether ZDR (zero data retention) is actually available to all users.
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