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.
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.
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.
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.
