[ChadNauseam]

Given how many important interactions people have with companies in our modern age, saying "There is no right to have your interactions with a company remain private" is essentially equivalent to saying "there is no right to privacy at all". When I talk to my friends over facetime or imessage, that interaction is being mediated by Apple, as well as by my internet service provider and (I assume) many other parties.

[wvenable]

> "There is no right to have your interactions with a company remain private" is essentially equivalent to saying "there is no right to privacy at all".

Legally that is a correct statement.

If you want that changed, it will require legislation.

[HDThoreaun]

Really not so simple. Roe v Wade was decided based on the implied right to privacy. Sure its been overturned but if liberals get back on the court it will be un-overturned

[wvenable]

Roe v Wade refers to the constitutional right to privacy under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. This is part of individual rights against the state and has nothing to do with private companies. There is no general constitutional right that guarantees privacy in interactions with private companies.

[maketheman]

Given the current balance of the court, I'd say it's about even odds we end the entire century without ever having had a liberal court the entire time. Best reasonable case we're a solid couple of decades from it, and even that's not got great odds.

We'd have a better chance if anyone with power were talking about court reform to make the Supreme Court justices e.g. drawn by lot for each session from the district courts, but approximately nobody is. It'd be damn good and long overdue reform, but oh well.

And the thing is, we've already had a fairly conservative court for decades. I'm pretty likely to die, even if of old age, never having seen an actually-liberal court in the US my entire life. Like, WTF. Frankly, no wonder so much of our situation is fucked up, backwards, and authoritarianism-friendly. And (sigh) any serious attempts to fix that are basically on hold for many decades more, assuming rule of law survives that long anyway.

[EDIT] My point, in short, is that "we still have [thing], we just have to wait for a liberal court that'll support it" is functionally indistinguishable from not having [thing].

[fallingknife]

A liberal court will probably start drawing exceptions to 1A out of thin air like "misinformation" and "hate speech." I'd rather stick with what we have.

[nativeit]

That’s presumably why legislation is needed?

[Analemma_]

> essentially equivalent to saying "there is no right to privacy at all".

As others have said, in the United States this is, legally, completely correct: there is no right to privacy in American law. Lots of people think the Fourth Amendment is a general right to privacy, and they are wrong: the Fourth Amendment is specifically about government search and seizure, and courts have been largely consistent about saying it does not extend beyond that to e.g. relationships with private parties.

If you want a right to privacy, you will need to advocate for laws to be changed; the ones as they exist now do not give it to you.

[tiahura]

No that is incorrect. See eg griswold, lawrence etc.

[Terr_]

That's a fallacy of equivocation, you're introducing a different meaning/flavor of the same word.

As it stands today, a court case (A) affirming the right to use contraception is not equivalent to a court case (B) stating that a phone-company/ISP/site may not sell their records of your activity.

[tiahura]

Your response hinges on a fallacy of equivocation, but ironically, it commits one as well.

You conflate the absence of a statutory or regulatory regime governing private data transactions with the broader constitutional right to privacy. While it’s true that the Fourth Amendment limits only state action, U.S. constitutional law, via cases like Griswold v. Connecticut and Lawrence v. Texas, and clearly recognizes a substantive right to privacy, grounded in the Due Process Clause and other constitutional penumbras. This is not a semantic variant; it is a distinct and judicially enforceable right.

Moreover, beyond constitutional law, the common law explicitly protects privacy through torts such as intrusion upon seclusion, public disclosure of private facts, false light, and appropriation of likeness. These apply to private actors and are recognized in nearly every U.S. jurisdiction.

Thus, while the Constitution may not prohibit a website from selling your data, it does affirm a right to privacy in other, fundamental contexts. To deny that entirely is legally incorrect.

[wvenable]

You're conflating the existence of specific privacy protections in narrow legal domains with a generalized, enforceable right to privacy which doesn't exist in US law. The Constitution recognizes a substantive right to privacy, but only in carefully defined areas like reproductive choice, family autonomy, and intimate conduct, and critically only against state actors. Citing Griswold, Lawrence, and related cases does not establish a sweeping privacy right enforceable against private companies.

Common law requires a high threshold of offensiveness and are adjudicated on a case-by-case in individual jurisdictions. They offer only remedies and not a proactive right to control your data.

The original point, that there is no general right in the US to have your interactions with a company remain private, still stands. That's not a denial of all privacy rights but a recognition that US law fails to provide comprehensive privacy protection.

[tiahura]

The statement I was referring to is:

“As others have said, in the United States this is, legally, completely correct: there is no right to privacy in American law.”

That is an incorrect statement. The common law torts I cited can apply in the context of a business transaction, so your statement is also incorrect.

If you’re strawman is that in the US there’s no right to privacy because there’s no blanket prohibition on talking about other people, and what they’ve been up to, then run with it.

[jcalvinowens]

In practice, the constitution says whatever the supreme court says it says.

While these grand theories of traditional implicit constitutional law are nice, they're pretty meaningless in a system where five individuals can (and are willing to) vote to invalidate decades of tradition on a whim.

I too want real laws.

[whilenot-dev]

Privacy in that example would be if no party except you and your friends can access the contents of this interaction. I wouldn't want neither Apple nor my ISP to have that access.

A company like OpenAI that offers a SaaS is no such friend, and in such power dynamics (individual VS company) it's probably in your best interest to have everything public if necessary.

[lxgr]

You're always free to keep records of your ChatGPT conversations on your end.

Why tangle the data of people with very different preferences than yours up in that?

[bobmcnamara]

> "there is no right to privacy at all"

First time?