> And wrapper-around-ChatGPT startups should double-check their privacy policies, that all the "you have no privacy" language is in place.
If a court orders you to preserve user data, could you be held liable for preserving user data? Regardless of your privacy policy.
I don't think the suit would be against you preserving it, it would be against you falsely representing that you aren't preserving it.
A court ordering you to stop selling pigeons doesn't mean you can keep your store for pigeons open and pocket the money without delivering pigeons.
Almost all privacy policies are going to have a call out for legal rulings. For example, here is the Hackernews Legal section in the privacy policy (https://www.ycombinator.com/legal/)
> Legal Requirements: If required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to (i) comply with a legal obligation, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements, (ii) protect and defend our rights or property, (iii) prevent fraud, (iv) act in urgent circumstances to protect the personal safety of users of the Services, or the public, or (v) protect against legal liability.
most people aren't sharing internal company data with hacker news or reddit
Sure, but my point is that most services will have something like this, no matter what data they have.
Not a lawyer, but I don't believe there is anything that any person or company can write on a piece of paper that supersedes the law.
The point is not about superseding the law. The point is that if your company privacy policy says "we will not divulge this data to 3rd parties under any circumstance", and later they are served with a warrant to divulge that data to the government, two things are true:
- They are legally obligated to divulge that data to the government
- Once they do so, they are civilly liable for breach of contract, as they have committed to never divulging this data. This may trigger additional breaches of contract, as others may have not had the right to share data with a company that can share it with third parties
Yes. If your agreement with the end user says that you won't collect and store data, you're responsible for it. If you can't provide it (even if due to a court order), you have to adjust your contract.
Your users aren't obligated to know that you're using open ai or other provider.
> If a court orders you to preserve user data, could you be held liable for preserving user data?
No, because you turn up to court and show the court order.
It's possible a subsequent case could get the first order overturned, but you can't be held liable for good faith efforts to comply with court orders.
However, if you're operating internationally, then suddenly it's possible that you may be issued competing court orders both of which are "valid". This is the CLOUD Act problem. In which case the only winning move becomes not to play.
I'm pretty sure even in the USA, you could still be held liable for breach of contract, if you made representations to your customers that you wouldn't share data under any circumstance. The fact that you made a promise you obviously couldn't keep doesn't absolve you from liability for that promise.
Can you find an example of that happening? For any "we promised not to do X but were ordered by a court to do it" event.
No. It’s a legal court order.
This, however, is horrible for AI regardless of whether or not you can sue.
In the US you absolutely can challenge everything up and including the constitutionality of court orders. You may be swiftly dismissed if nobody thinks you have a valid case, but you can try.