Data Brokers Are Hiding Their Opt-Out Pages From Google Search (wired.com) 29
Data brokers are required by California law to provide ways for consumers to request their data be deleted. But good luck finding them. From a report: More than 30 of the companies, which collect and sell consumers' personal information, hid their deletion instructions from Google, according to a review by The Markup and CalMatters of hundreds of broker websites. This creates one more obstacle for consumers who want to delete their data.
Many of the pages containing the instructions, listed in an official state registry, use code to tell search engines to remove the page entirely from search results. Popular tools like Google and Bing respect the code by excluding pages when responding to users. 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.
Many of the pages containing the instructions, listed in an official state registry, use code to tell search engines to remove the page entirely from search results. Popular tools like Google and Bing respect the code by excluding pages when responding to users. 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.
Just ask ChatGPT (Score:3)
Popular tools like Google and Bing respect the code by excluding pages when responding to users
Companies training LLMs have no such ethics and will happily use everything for training, just ask an LLM in a few months.
Re:Just ask ChatGPT (Score:4, Informative)
It's a shame they didn't look too closely at how Europe handled this stuff, because we have years of case law and regulator rulings that could have headed off this kind of thing before it got started.
In Europe they have to make the information easy to find, and contacting them has to be easy too. An email address for a website is basically mandatory. They still try it on sometimes, but if you go to their privacy policy and search for the @ symbol then 9 times out of 10 it gets you an email address to send your request to.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Well, the US is so incredible anti-consumer now, that they will not adopt anything that works for consumers. Obviously, this goes back to a broken voter population that understands nothing and that cannot be fixed.
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Well, the US is so incredible anti-consumer now, that they will not adopt anything that works for consumers. Obviously, this goes back to a broken voter population that understands nothing and that cannot be fixed.
It's the simple fact they've been trained to think of themselves as consumers, not people, that means this won't be easily fixed.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, that and that they were to easily trained. Dumb people do not make for a working democracy.
Re:Just ask ChatGPT (Score:5, Insightful)
They did look at it, so they knew what not to do, because helping the consumer is not the goal.
America has been controlled by corporations for decades, since before WWII really. Their lawyers literally write bills and then give them to congresspeople for introduction and sponsorship, while their lobbyists give them money at the same time.
Unfortunately, Americans have been deliberately undereducated since Reagan was president so that they don't realize that this is being done, let alone understand that it's a key element of fascism.
Re: (Score:1)
And did you know that pretty much every interest group out there, including those that promote your own preferences, also write bills that they give to legislators for introduction, and have lobbyists that give legislators money? That's just representative democracy.
I would agree that there has been deliberate undereducation, but
Re: (Score:2)
It's a two-way street.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://www.britannica.com/top... [britannica.com]
https://mises.org/mises-wire/r... [mises.org]
https://antiauthoritarianplayb... [substack.com]
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Companies often even have two different ToS, one for europe and one for the rest of the world without GDPR, so they at least get the data from the non-GDPR countries.
Re: (Score:2)
In some way, robot.txt is similar to the evil bit RFC:
https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc... [rfc-editor.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Only that it has no directive to make evil crawlers crash.
Re: Just ask ChatGPT (Score:2)
"There was a clear dividing line between the purpose of GET vs POST requests, the former for viewing data and the later modifying data."
That is just plain false.
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed. I can name some forums and hobbyist sites that are gone because the owner pulled the plug one day and they were never archived.
Re: (Score:2)
Blatant Evil (Score:2)
Spank the suckers!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A 50MT thermonuclear bomb dropped on their HQ ought to do the trick..
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Positive Spin (Score:3)
First, shoot all of the data brokers (Score:2)
Have you seen some of these opt-out pages?
To me, they look like they are just a ruse to collect even more information.
You have to provide so many personal details that are not necessary for the request.
And will they honour the request? LOL
Hiding something is an admission of criminality (Score:4, Interesting)
If the law says they must allow for something, but they actively obfuscate or hinder the publics ability to do what they are legally obligated to do, that is a crime.
Don't forget the dark patterns (Score:2)
Accept all: Your choices are stored forever
Reject all: Please stand by while your preferences are saved 2/361 (161 seconds remaining)
Yes, some "cookie" banners really have a delay for saving out-out. But it's not server-side, but a sleep function in the browser. ...
They probably just want to give you more time to cancel the opt-out when you clicked accidentally
Duh (Score:2)
Of course not. Everyone knew that it was BS from the start. The lawyers, the politicians, the billionaires. They just wanted people to get used to the idea as normal. Let's call it "grooming," because there is a lot of anal going on.