Some Data Brokers Hid Opt-Out Pages from Search Engines ⇥ themarkup.org

Colin Lecher and Tomas Apodaca, the Markup:

Data brokers nationwide must register in California under the state’s Consumer Privacy Act, which allows Californians to request that their information be removed, that it not be sold or that they get access to it.

After reviewing the websites of all 499 data brokers registered with the state, we found 35 had code to stop certain pages from showing up in searches.

I am surprised just 35 were this sketchy — less than 10%. By my count of the Markup’s further reporting, 15 of those have since removed this restriction.

The core problems of data brokers remain, however: they are opt-out, not opt-in; and most people have not heard of them. The Markup acknowledges legislation in California attempting to address half this problem by creating a single opt-out demand. But that leaves these privacy-hostile businesses as defaulting to opted-in, and it does not do a whole lot of good for people outside California.