[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.

[wvenable]

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

I completely disagree. Yes, the Prosser privacy torts exist: intrusion upon seclusion, public disclosure, false light, and appropriation. But they are highly fact-specific, hard to win, rarely litigated, not recognized in all jurisdictions, and completely reactive -- you get harmed first, maybe sue later!

They are utterly inadequate to protect people in the modern data economy. A website selling your purchase history? Not actionable. A company logging your AI chats? Not intrusion. These torts are not a privacy regime - they are scraps. Also when we're talking about basic privacy rights, we just as concerned with mundane material not just "highly offensive" material that the torts would apply to.

[tiahura]

Because in the US we value freedom and particularly freedom of speech.

If don’t want the grocery store telling people you buy Coke, don’t shop there.

[wvenable]

So you've entirely given up your argument about the legal right to privacy involving private businesses?

[tiahura]

no, i'm saying that in many contexts it is. If for example, someone hacked Safeway's store and downloaded your data, they'd be in trouble civilly and criminally. If you don't want safeway to sell your data, deal with that yourself.

[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.