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The California Privacy Protection Agency kicked off 2026 by launching a tool that state residents can use to make data brokers delete and stop selling their personal information.
The system, known as the Delete Request and Opt-out Platform, or DROP, has been in the works for years, mandated by a 2023 law known as the Delete Act. Under it and previous laws, data brokers must register with the state and enable consumers to tell brokers to stop tracking them and selling their information.
Until now, those instructions had to be delivered to each data broker individually — not an easy feat, given that more than 500 brokers were registered in the state as of the end of last year. Making things even more difficult, some brokers obscured their opt-out forms from search results, as The Markup and CalMatters revealed in August.
The new system delivers privacy instructions to every registered broker at once. Launched on January 1, it is open to all California residents. By law, the hundreds of data brokers registered with the state must begin processing those requests in August.
