[lxgr]

It absolutely goes against norms in many countries other than the US, and the data of residents/citizens of these countries are affected too.

> It’s not like the data is going to be given to anyone, it’s only gong to be used for limited legal purposes for the lawsuit (as OpenAI confirms in this article).

Nobody other than both parties to the case, their lawyers, the court, and whatever case file storage system they use. In my view, that's already way too much given the amount and value of this data.

[dangus]

Countries other than the US aren't part of this lawsuit. ChatGPT operates in the US under US law. I don't know if they have separated data storage for other countries.

I don't believe you would be considered to be violating the GDPR if you are complying with another court order, because you are presumably making a best effort to comply with the GDPR besides that court order.

You're saying it's unreasonable to store data somewhere for a pending court case? Conceptually you're saying that you can't preserve data for trials because the filing cabinets might see the information. That's ridiculous, if that was true then it would be impossible to perform discovery and get anything done in court.

[lxgr]

> I don't believe you would be considered to be violating the GDPR if you are complying with another court order, because you are presumably making a best effort to comply with the GDPR besides that court order.

It most likely depends on the exact circumstances. I could absolutely imagine a European court deciding that, sorry, but if you have to answer to a court decision incompatible with European privacy laws, you can't offer services to European residents anymore.

> You're saying it's unreasonable to store data somewhere for a pending court case?

I'm saying it can be, depending on how much personal and/or unrelated data gets tangled up in it. That seems to be the case here.

> Conceptually you're saying that you can't preserve data for trials because the filing cabinets might see the information.

I'm only saying that there should be proportionality. A court having access to all facts relevant to a case is important, but it's not the only important thing in the world.

Otherwise, we could easily end up with a Dirk-Gently-esque court that, based on the principle that everything is connected to everything, will just demand access to all the data in the world.

[dangus]

The scope of the data access required by the court is being worked out via due process. That’s why there’s an appeal system. OpenAI is just grandstanding in a public forum so that their customers don’t defect.

When it comes to GDPR, courts have generally taken the stance that GDPR is not overruling.

Ironburg Inventions, Ltd. v. Valve Corp.

Finjan, Inc. v. Zscaler, Inc.

Corel Software, LLC v. Microsoft

Rollins Ranches, LLC v. Watson

In none of these cases was a GDPR fine issued.