X-RAY · 20 SEPTEMBER 2026
The same eight AIs, asked something they cannot know: the tracking was already there
In the morning they were asked the capital of Colombia, which they all know by heart. An hour and a half later, the weather in Barranquilla right now, which none of them knows: every one has to go and look it up. The surprise is that almost nothing changes. Gemini loads the same six advertising services both times; Copilot the same four. What they load, they load on opening, not on searching. The one real change: ChatGPT goes from one to three, and the two new ones belong to Google.
How to read this. GUARDIANA writes down every name the machine asks to resolve (DNS). It sees names, not content: neither the question nor the answer. Each AI was opened alone in a fresh tab of the everyday Chrome, already signed in, the same question was typed into it, and the tab was closed. The machine’s name cache was emptied before each one. From what the machine asked for in that minute, Windows’ own names, the signed-in browser’s own traffic and the machine’s search engines are subtracted; what is left is what the page made it ask for. “Third party” here means the name is not that AI: it may belong to the same company or group, or to another company, and the page shows the two apart.
The record
- Date: 20 September 2026 (Bogotá time), 11:23 to 11:33. About a 65-second window per AI.
- Question typed into all eight: «Que tiempo hace ahora mismo en Barranquilla y que temperatura hay». Without accents or question marks, because the script types key by key.
- Machine: a Windows 11 test PC, the everyday Chrome with the real profile and the sessions already signed in, GUARDIANA 0.2.3 as its DNS.
- Nine AIs were measured; eight are published. Mistral is out again: its window ended on «Iniciar sesión», the sign-in screen.
- Four of the eight changed their window title to the answer — ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity — which is the proof that they answered. The other four never change title.
- An earlier attempt, at 10:39, was thrown away whole: with the window stretched to 60 seconds the run took thirteen minutes, the machine locked the session at ten, and the keystrokes stopped arriving. Eight of the nine measured zero, which is what a run that types nowhere measures. Since then the script has a guard that aborts if it cannot bring Chrome to the front.
- 8,000 events in the ledger export these counts come from.
Scoreboard
How many services that are not that AI its page makes the machine ask for when it is opened signed in and asked something it cannot answer from memory. They may belong to the same company or group as the AI, or to other companies: under each figure you can see how many of each. Beside it, how many of those are on the public advertising and tracking lists.
| AI | Services besides the AI | Of those, advertising or tracking | Its own domains | Distinct names the PC asked for in its minute | The fewest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 | yes |
| Meta AI | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | yes |
| ChatGPT | 3 3 from other companies | 0 | 3 | 6 | |
| Perplexity | 3 3 from other companies | 1 | 7 | 10 | |
| Copilot | 4 1 from Microsoft, 3 from other companies | 1 | 4 | 8 | |
| DeepSeek | 5 5 from other companies | 0 | 2 | 7 | |
| Gemini | 6 6 from Google | 6 | 10 | 16 | |
| Grok | 14 3 from X, 11 from other companies | 6 | 2 | 16 |
Tied on 0, the fewest third-party services: Claude, Meta AI, against 14 for the one loading most. Not being on those lists does not mean it does not track: it means the lists do not know that name. This is a result of these pages on this day, not a general verdict.
What it says
The idea was that forcing them to search would open a new world: the search engine behind them, the pages they fetch, the measurement of each query. It did not happen. Gemini loads its six advertising services with the easy question and with the hard one, the same six name by name; Copilot, the same four. What they load does not depend on what you ask: it is there from the moment the page opens. The exception is ChatGPT, which goes from one third party to three, and the two new ones are t1.gstatic.com and t3.gstatic.com, the thumbnails of the search results: you ask ChatGPT, and your machine ends up talking to Google. Claude and Meta AI repeat zero. And Grok repeats the other end: fourteen.
Why this x-ray matters even though it finds nothing new
A measurement that repeats is a measurement. Gemini with six and six, and Copilot with four and one, come out the same with two different questions at two times of day: that says what is counted is real and not the noise of the minute.
And the result nobody expected is a result too: an AI's tracking does not switch on when you ask it something hard. It was already on when you opened the page.
Detail
| Measure | Claude | Meta AI | ChatGPT | Perplexity | Copilot | DeepSeek | Gemini | Grok |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Distinct names its page asked for | 4 | 2 | 6 | 10 | 8 | 7 | 16 | 16 |
| · advertising | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 5 |
| · trackers | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| · telemetry | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| · on no list that knows them | 4 | 2 | 6 | 9 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 10 |
| Advertising + trackers + telemetry | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 6 |
| The site's own domains | 4 | 2 | 3 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 10 | 2 |
| Names the browser blocked | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Blocked names that reached the DNS anyway | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Services besides the AI itself | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 14 |
| · from the same company or group | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 3 |
| · from other companies | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 11 |
| Attempts to use someone else’s encrypted DNS (the “DNS evasion” signal) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Measured from the inside (DevTools) | no, driven by keystrokes | no, driven by keystrokes | no, driven by keystrokes | no, driven by keystrokes | no, driven by keystrokes | no, driven by keystrokes | no, driven by keystrokes | no, driven by keystrokes |
Claude
No outside services, same as with the easy question. Four names, all four its own. It did answer: the window title changed to «Clima actual en Barranquilla». GUARDIANA is built with Claude Code, from Anthropic. That is said here, in its own row, because hiding the partner would be worse than showing it — and this figure can be checked like every other.
Services besides the AI itself (0)
Everything its page made the machine ask for that is not that AI, whether from the same company or group or from other companies. The category appears only when the name is on an open list of advertising, tracking or telemetry.
None.
Its own domains (4)
a.claude.ai· 2 queriesassets-proxy.anthropic.com· 2 queriess-cdn.anthropic.com· 2 queriesclaude.ai· 2 queries
Meta AI
No outside services. Two names, both its own. Its window title never changes, so from outside there is no way to prove it answered. What can be proved is who it made the machine talk to while it was open: nobody.
Services besides the AI itself (0)
Everything its page made the machine ask for that is not that AI, whether from the same company or group or from other companies. The category appears only when the name is on an open list of advertising, tracking or telemetry.
None.
Its own domains (2)
www.meta.ai· 2 queriesgateway.meta.ai· 2 queries
ChatGPT
It goes from one to three outside services, and the two new ones are Google's: t1.gstatic.com and t3.gstatic.com, the thumbnails for search results. Which is to say: you ask ChatGPT a question and your machine ends up talking to Google. The third is a.nel.cloudflare.com, network error reporting. None of the three is on an advertising or tracking list. A SharePoint name also dropped into its window and is not counted against it: it turns up five separate times across the day, it is OneDrive running in the background, and it has nothing to do with the page.
Services besides the AI itself (3)
Everything its page made the machine ask for that is not that AI, whether from the same company or group or from other companies. The category appears only when the name is on an open list of advertising, tracking or telemetry.
t1.gstatic.com· 2 queriest3.gstatic.com· 2 queriesa.nel.cloudflare.com· 2 queries
Its own domains (3)
ws.chatgpt.com· 2 querieschatgpt.com· 4 queriesapi.oaistatsig.com· 2 queries
Perplexity
Seven names of its own and three outside, one on the lists: browser-intake-datadoghq.com (tracker, application monitoring). The other two are product and campaign measurement: fscdn.eppo.cloud and sdk-api-v1.singular.net. With the easy question there were five; with this one, three.
Services besides the AI itself (3)
Everything its page made the machine ask for that is not that AI, whether from the same company or group or from other companies. The category appears only when the name is on an open list of advertising, tracking or telemetry.
browser-intake-datadoghq.com· tracker · 2 queriessdk-api-v1.singular.net· 2 queriesfscdn.eppo.cloud· 2 queries
Its own domains (7)
count.perplexity.ai· 2 querieswww.perplexity.ai· 2 queriessuggest.perplexity.ai· 2 queriesedge.perplexity.ai· 2 queriesfrontend-cdn.perplexity.ai· 2 queriesr2cdn.perplexity.ai· 2 queriespplx-next-static-public.perplexity.ai· 2 queries
Copilot
Four services that are not Copilot, one of them on the lists — the very same four as with the easy question: Microsoft's own telemetry (browser.events.data.microsoft.com) and, from other companies, Sentry for errors and Sprig, two names, for the surveys inside the product. Two different questions, one result.
Services besides the AI itself (4)
Everything its page made the machine ask for that is not that AI, whether from the same company or group or from other companies. The category appears only when the name is on an open list of advertising, tracking or telemetry.
browser.events.data.microsoft.com· telemetry · 2 querieso4508134825000960.ingest.us.sentry.io· 2 queriesapi.sprig.com· 2 queriescdn.sprig.com· 2 queries
Its own domains (4)
copilot.microsoft.com· 2 queriescopilot.fun· 2 querieslogin.microsoftonline.com· 2 querieslogin.live.com· 2 queries
DeepSeek
Two names of its own and five outside, none of them on advertising lists: ByteDance's Volcano Engine (apm.volccdn.com, apmplus.volces.com, gator.volces.com), Cloudflare's bot firewall and fp-it-acc.portal101.cn. chatgpt.com dropped into its window again in the first few seconds: the browser guessing at the previous address as it is typed, and it is not counted against it.
Services besides the AI itself (5)
Everything its page made the machine ask for that is not that AI, whether from the same company or group or from other companies. The category appears only when the name is on an open list of advertising, tracking or telemetry.
apm.volccdn.com· 2 querieschallenges.cloudflare.com· 2 queriesapmplus.volces.com· 2 queriesgator.volces.com· 2 queriesfp-it-acc.portal101.cn· 2 queries
Its own domains (2)
chat.deepseek.com· 2 queriesfe-static.deepseek.com· 2 queries
Gemini
Six services that are not Gemini, all six on the lists — the same six as the easy question, one for one: googletagmanager, google-analytics, googleadservices and DoubleClick by three routes. They belong to Google, as Gemini does, but they are not Gemini. Two questions, the same answer twice.
Services besides the AI itself (6)
Everything its page made the machine ask for that is not that AI, whether from the same company or group or from other companies. The category appears only when the name is on an open list of advertising, tracking or telemetry.
www.googletagmanager.com· tracker · 2 queriesad.doubleclick.net· advertising · 2 queriesgoogleads.g.doubleclick.net· advertising · 2 querieswww.google-analytics.com· advertising · 2 querieswww.googleadservices.com· advertising · 2 queriesstats.g.doubleclick.net· advertising · 2 queries
Its own domains (10)
waa-pa.clients6.google.com· 2 queriesssl.gstatic.com· 2 queriessignaler-pa.clients6.google.com· 2 queriesaccounts.google.com· 2 querieswww.google.com.co· 2 queriesgemini.gstatic.com· 2 queriesogs.google.com· 2 queriesgemini.google.com· 2 querieslh3.googleusercontent.com· 2 queriesanalytics.google.com· 2 queries
Grok
Fourteen that are not Grok, six on lists: DoubleClick by two routes, Google Analytics, Tag Manager, X's advertising (static.ads-twitter.com) and t.co. The other eight are on no list: Stripe with three names, analytics.twitter.com, a Microsoft name (array508.prod.do.dsp.mp.microsoft.com), a Google STUN server, stapecdn.com and a tag container of its own. Of the fourteen, three are from X, part of the same group (static.ads-twitter.com, t.co and analytics.twitter.com), and eleven from other companies. It is still, by a distance, the one that talks most. Its window discounts gemini.google.com, which is the browser guessing the previous address.
Services besides the AI itself (14)
Everything its page made the machine ask for that is not that AI, whether from the same company or group or from other companies. The category appears only when the name is on an open list of advertising, tracking or telemetry.
js.stripe.com· 4 querieswww.googletagmanager.com· tracker · 2 queriest.co· advertising · 2 queriessgtm-prod-985009374134.us-central1.run.app· 2 queriesm.stripe.com· 2 queriesad.doubleclick.net· advertising · 2 queriesgoogleads.g.doubleclick.net· advertising · 2 querieswww.google-analytics.com· advertising · 2 queriesstapecdn.com· 2 queriesanalytics.twitter.com· 2 queriesstun.l.google.com· 2 queriesm.stripe.network· 2 queriesstatic.ads-twitter.com· advertising · 2 queriesarray508.prod.do.dsp.mp.microsoft.com· 1 query
Its own domains (2)
cdn.grok.com· 2 queriesgrok.com· 2 queries
What only a guardian on the machine sees
The browser shows the page; GUARDIANA writes down every name the page makes the machine ask for, including the ones no content blocker ever shows you:
- Outside the browser: in each window the machine also looked up between 1 and 3 services belonging to other apps. They are not published (they are the test machine’s), but in your own panel you would see them one by one, next to the phones and the TV of the house.
- Attempts to bypass the machine’s DNS (the “DNS evasion” signal): none in this test.
- And it says what escapes it: traffic over its own encrypted DNS, a VPN or a private relay does not go through the machine’s DNS. GUARDIANA flags it when it detects it and writes it into its limits; it does not promise to see a hundred per cent.
What can be claimed
- With a question that forces a search, Gemini made the machine ask for the same six advertising and tracking names as with one that does not.
- ChatGPT made it ask for two Google names that did not appear with the easy question: the thumbnails of the search results.
- Claude and Meta AI made the machine talk to no third-party service, with either question.
- Four of the eight left proof that they answered: their window title became the answer.
What cannot be claimed
- That the machine went on to connect to those services, or that it sent anything: what is seen here is that the machine asked for the name. A connection almost always follows, but a browser also looks names up ahead of time and sometimes never uses them.
- That the four that never change title really searched: they never change it, whether they answer or not.
- What is sent when there is a connection, or what the answer says: GUARDIANA sees names, not content.
- That an AI with zero third-party names collects nothing: it can do so through its own domains.
- That these numbers are anyone’s numbers: they depend on the account, the country and the minute.
- That Mistral is better or worse: it was not measured signed in.
What you can switch off
- In any of them: a content blocker stops the measurement tools, but not what the AI asks of its own domains.
- In Gemini: the advertising it loads belongs to the Google account and is trimmed in Google's ad settings.
- With GUARDIANA: Guard Mode lets you declare which services an AI needs to talk to and block the rest, with undo.
Data and method
Full data: ocho-ia-buscando-en-internet-2026-09-20.csv (name, category, whether it belongs to the maker and, per AI, queries and whether its page asked for it). Method: each AI opened in its own tab of the everyday Chrome (real profile, sessions already signed in) with site/src/radiografia/ia-teclas.ps1, launched as a scheduled task in the interactive session: name cache emptied before each one, the address typed into the omnibox, 16 seconds of waiting, the question typed, 40 more seconds and the tab closed. From each window are subtracted Windows' names, the signed-in browser's own, the machine's search engines and — written one by one in each AI's note — whatever the browser guessed while the previous address was being typed. The tools are in the program's repository (site/src/radiografia/); anyone can repeat the test with GUARDIANA installed.
Brands named as the names of their owners. If you are the maker and something here is inaccurate, write to hola@guardianagroup.com: it is corrected, with the date.
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