AI companies and data brokers even resort to fake forms to keep selling our data

Act surprised! A new privacy study has found that data brokers and AI companies deliberately deceive consumers who attempt to opt out of the sale of their personal data. An audit of the opt-out processes of dozens of major data companies found that they employ a variety of underhand practices – including fake forms …

Data brokers buy personal information about individuals from a wide range of sources, including app developers and websites, as well as scraping the internet for publicly available data. They then package this information up to sell to companies who will use it to spam us.

Privacy researchers audited the opt-out processes of 38 major data-collecting companies, including data brokers, AI vendors and dating app developers. The study found that deceptive practices and even outright lies were common. Wired provided some examples.

Opt-out forms that don’t actually let users opt out of the sale of their data. Links that are buried in fine print and missing from homepages. Consumers routed through multiple separate forms to complete a single request. And requirements that users create accounts or pay for subscriptions before opting out at all, among others.

Companies guilty of these types of tactics aren’t just fly-by-night ones: they include Google, Meta, and OpenAI.