Owned it Ltd
| Basic information | |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2011-08-30 |
| Legal Structure | Private |
| Industry | Browser extensions, Technographics |
| Also known as | Braggnow Ltd, Ownedit Ltd |
| Official website | https://www.whatruns.com/ |
Owned it Ltd is a United Kingdom private limited company (Companies House number 07755519) that publishes the WhatRuns browser extension, a technographic tool installed by roughly 400,000 Chrome users.[1][2] On May 11, 2026, independent security researcher James Arnott classified WhatRuns at the Confirmed tier of his AI Chat Scraping Extension Wall of Shame after observing the extension transmit every visited URL & every AI chat session to remote servers with no obfuscation and no in-product notice to the user.[3]
Consumer-impact summary
[edit | edit source]- Publishes a Chrome extension installed by approximately 400,000 users that an independent security audit confirms exfiltrates visited URLs & AI chat content.[1][3]
- The extension carries a Chrome Web Store "Featured" badge & a publisher-verification notice stating the publisher has "a good record with no history of violations," which sit alongside the documented exfiltration behavior.[1]
- No user-facing disclosure of the data collection appears in the extension itself, per Arnott's audit.[3]
Background
[edit | edit source]Owned it Ltd is registered with Companies House under number 07755519 & holds status Active.[2] The company was incorporated on August 30, 2011 under the name Braggnow Ltd & was renamed Owned it Ltd on December 2, 2011.[2] It operates under SIC code 63990, "Other information service activities not elsewhere classified."[2]
The registered office sits at 11 Brindley Place, Brunswick Square, Birmingham, B1 2LP. The address was moved from the company's prior office at Faraday Wharf, Birmingham Science Park, B7 4BB on October 29, 2023.[4]
Two of the original directors remain active: Sonu Nirmal Kumar Bubna & Manoj Vadakinazhikath Krishnapillai, both appointed on August 30, 2011.[5] A third director, Shashank Deshmukh, was appointed on September 5, 2011 & resigned on June 1, 2013.[5]
Products
[edit | edit source]The company's primary public product is WhatRuns, a browser extension that identifies the software stack running on a visited website, including frameworks, analytics tools, WordPress plugins, & fonts.[1] WhatRuns was soft-launched in August 2017 & posted to Hacker News on August 25, 2017, where the developer wrote that the extension had been "picked up by the Chrome team."[6] The Chrome Web Store listing for WhatRuns names the developer as "Ownedit Ltd, 11 Brindley Place, Birmingham B1 2LP, GB," with a contact address of [email protected], & reports approximately 400,000 users.[1]
Incidents
[edit | edit source]2026 amibeingpwned Wall of Shame
[edit | edit source]- Main article: WhatRuns
On May 11, 2026, security researcher James Arnott published the AI Chat Scraping Extension Wall of Shame on amibeingpwned.com, listing eight browser extensions that his testing showed were transmitting browsing history or AI chat content to publisher-controlled servers. WhatRuns appeared at position six on the list, classified at the Confirmed tier alongside the note that the extension reports approximately 400,000 users & carries the Chrome Web Store Featured badge.[3]
Arnott described the observed behavior in direct terms:
WhatRuns exfiltrates every URL you visit, alongside AI chats. No exceptions here, they don't even bother to obfuscate the requests which is nice to see, although there's no indication to the user this exfiltration is happening.
Related coverage of the broader browser-extension data-collection pattern is at Browser extension AI chat exfiltration.
See also
[edit | edit source]References
[edit | edit source]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 "WhatRuns - Chrome Web Store". Google. Retrieved 2026-05-30.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "OWNED IT LTD overview". Find and update company information. Companies House. Retrieved 2026-05-30.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Arnott, James (2026-05-11). "AI Chat Scraping Extension Wall of Shame". Am I Being Pwned?. Retrieved 2026-05-30.
- ↑ "OWNED IT LTD filing history". Find and update company information. Companies House. Retrieved 2026-05-30.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "OWNED IT LTD people". Find and update company information. Companies House. Retrieved 2026-05-30.
- ↑ "Show HN: WhatRuns - A free alternative to Builtwith". Hacker News. 2017-08-25. Retrieved 2026-05-30.