If you write down your secrets on a diary, or tell some of your friends about it, or God forbid! write it up on Facebook, then you're asking for trouble (or maybe you want those "secrets" to not stay secret forever).
My secrets are in my head, I don't talk about them to anyone, I don't write them down. They will die with me.
Of course that doesn't work for a business. But a business is NOT a person, so it's disingenuous to claim that businesses have a right to "privacy". Businesses have no "human rights". Businesses are things, like a table or a shoe.
It's not that binary. Something can be a "secret" and yet you have to tell some people, but not others.
What if your "secret" is that you're gay and you're in an evangelical hardcore religious family and you want to get out? How do you talk to a help group far away without telling your parents? Is "I'm gay" a secret? You have to tell the help group, but don't want to tell your parents. "Keep it in your head and tell no-one" just doesn't work then.
I'm only saying, what's not written can't be read. What isn't said can't be heard.
My mother was a lawyer and always taught us never to talk over the phone about things that were potentially incriminating, much less writing it down -- and this was in the seventies-eighties, long before anything resembling the Internet or the mass-surveillance capabilities of today's NSA.
What I'm saying is that a real secret is something not shared with anyone; if you need to share a "secret" with another person:
- you need to take extreme precautions, such as not talking about it on the phone, not writing about it, not alluding to it when in presence of other people
- you can only talk about it in person, not over any kind of wire, regardless of what you think are good encryption methods
- and even if you do all of the above it's very likely the secret won't stay secret forever
It's a practical thing. If you write a secret down, then there's another instance of it in the world; an instance that might (and most likely will) be mishandled or otherwise discovered by third party, accidentally or not. So if there's any instance of the secret outside of your head, it's better to treat it as 'public but not yet discovered by people', and adjust your OPSEC accordingly.
Businesses have a need for secrets, as grellas explains. Whether or not you call the need "a right" or refer to the secrets as "privacy" isn't really important.
Businesses may have "needs" but just because they do doesn't mean we should help them meet them. It may be to the benefit of the public (made of humans) that businesses have no secrets or that their secrets can be investigated.
It's of utmost importance that we never refer to businesses' needs as rights.
My secrets are in my head, I don't talk about them to anyone, I don't write them down. They will die with me.
Of course that doesn't work for a business. But a business is NOT a person, so it's disingenuous to claim that businesses have a right to "privacy". Businesses have no "human rights". Businesses are things, like a table or a shoe.