<P> "The Right to Privacy" (4 Harvard L.R. 193 (Dec. 15, 1890)) is a law review article written by Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis, and published in the 1890 Harvard Law Review . It is "one of the most influential essays in the history of American law" and is widely regarded as the first publication in the United States to advocate a right to privacy, articulating that right primarily as a "right to be let alone". </P> <P> Although credited to both Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren, the article was apparently written primarily by Brandeis, on a suggestion of Warren based on his "deep - seated abhorrence of the invasions of social privacy ." William Prosser, in writing his own influential article on the privacy torts in American law, attributed the specific incident to an intrusion by journalists on a society wedding, but in truth it was inspired by more general coverage of intimate personal lives in society columns of newspapers . </P>

Who popularized the definition of privacy as the right to be free from intrusion