When you delete your old conversations on ChatGPT, the logs will now be gone for good. Earlier this year, OpenAI was forced to retain users’ deleted chat logs as part of its ongoing multibillion-dollar copyright lawsuit with The New York Times and other news organizations. The preservation order from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York was put in place because deleted chats were thought to possibly contain evidence of users prompting ChatGPT to reproduce copyrighted news articles.
Controversy Over Data Retention
The court order immediately impacted hundreds of millions of users across the ChatGPT Free, Plus, Pro, and Team tiers, as well as users of OpenAI’s application programming interface (API). The directive did not, however, affect customers using ChatGPT Enterprise or ChatGPT Edu or those with a Zero Data Retention agreement for their API use. The issue caused considerable outcry within the user community, and OpenAI’s lawyers publicly accused The New York Times’ lawyers of “overreach” for issuing the demands, arguing that it “fundamentally conflicts with the privacy commitments” the company had made to its users. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called The New York Times’ data request “unconscionable” in a post on X.
Preservation Order is Lifted
The legal dispute reached a resolution earlier this week when U.S. Magistrate Judge Ona Wang approved a joint order from both parties to terminate the sweeping preservation order. This means OpenAI is no longer obligated to save new chat logs. However, all of the deleted chats and data that had already been preserved under the court order prior to September 26 will still be accessible to The New York Times’ lawyers as evidence in the ongoing litigation.
Despite regaining the ability to permanently delete chats from the logs, users are still advised to exercise caution. Altman himself previously warned that conversations with ChatGPT are not legally protected and could be presented as evidence in future court proceedings.
Author’s Opinion
The lifting of the preservation order is a minor, tactical victory for OpenAI that restores a baseline of user trust, but the fact remains that the company fought hard to avoid collecting sensitive data primarily because of the immense, costly liability it creates. The case confirms that for most users, privacy with a large language model is only an optional, revocable feature dictated by the terms of a legal battle, not a fundamental right. It underscores that if consumers want true data security, they should operate under a Zero Data Retention agreement or assume that any “deleted” conversation remains permanently archived on a server somewhere for legal or compliance purposes.
Featured image credit: Deng Xiang via Unsplash
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