In response to a controversial request by The New York Times, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, emphasized the importance of user privacy and stated that conversations with chatbots should remain confidential, similar to communications between a lawyer and their client. This statement came after The New York Times demanded the permanent retention of all user conversations with ChatGPT as part of a legal dispute.
The background of this case dates back to a December 2023 lawsuit filed by The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft. The newspaper alleged that these two companies used millions of articles from its content without permission to train AI models such as ChatGPT and Copilot. Now, The New York Times’ lawyers have asked the court to require OpenAI to retain all user conversations with these chatbots, including those that users have previously deleted.
This request met with a firm response from OpenAI. Altman announced on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter): "The New York Times’ demand to prohibit users from deleting their chats is baseless and concerning. Such an action could set a dangerous precedent for the future." He added that OpenAI will appeal the decision in court and will do everything possible to protect its users' privacy.
Altman also emphasized that the global community should consider a legal framework for "data immunity in the field of artificial intelligence" to protect users’ rights against such legal actions.
According to OpenAI’s current policy, chats deleted by users are ultimately removed from the company’s servers within 30 days. However, if the court rules in favor of The New York Times, OpenAI will be required to permanently store all chats—even those that have been deleted—which could severely undermine users’ trust in this technology.
It is worth noting that enterprise and educational users (Enterprise and Edu), as well as those using the API with the data-saving disable option, will be exempt from this new policy.
OpenAI concluded by stating that it will continue its legal appeal until the final outcome of the case is determined and will provide more details to the public soon.
