The nation’s strictest privacy law just took effect, to data brokers’ chagrin

A new privacy law in California, one of the strictest in the nation, has come into effect, giving residents more control over their personal data being hoarded and sold by data brokers. These brokers collect information from various sources and sell it to marketers and others. A previous law, the Delete Act, required data brokers to provide residents with their data and delete it upon request, but only 1% of Californians utilized this right due to the burden of filing requests with each broker individually. The new law, DROP (Delete Request and Opt-out Platform), simplifies the process by allowing residents to submit a single request to have their data deleted and no longer collected by all brokers.