What the April 30 update establishes institutionally is that OpenAI's free tier is now an advertising product, not a research access program. The opt-in framing OpenAI previously maintained has been replaced by an opt-out structure — the burden has shifted to users who must now actively refuse tracking rather than actively accept it. For the tens of millions of free ChatGPT users who will never read a privacy policy email, the default setting is the decision. The company that built its early user base on a promise of no ads…