Data brokers face new pressure to hide the subscription cancellation pages from Google

Senator the United States Maggie Hassan presses the main data brokers after the investigation before Coding/ /Calmness and Published by wireless At least 35 companies are found at least hiding the cancellation information information from the search results, which makes it difficult for people to control their own data and protect their privacy over the Internet.

Hassan, the Great Democrat in the Joint Economic Committee, put five of the best companies – IQVia Digital, Comscore, Telesign Corporation, 6 Sense Insights and Findem –On Wednesday noticeAsking each of them to clarify the reason for the appearance of a symbol on its sites designed to thwart the deletion requests.

None of the companies immediately responded to WIRED to comment. None of them responded to the requests for suspension during the investigation.

California brokers law requests to provide a way to delete personal data; However, the investigation of dozens of registered brokers found that they block their subscription canceling tools by hiding them from Google and other research results. Consumer defenders described it as a “smart action” that undermines privacy rights and may be qualified as illegal Dark pattern– Design decision, according to the California Privacy Organization, leads to the erosion of the consumer “independence, decision -making or choice when confirming or consenting privacy rights.”

Hassan wants to justify the position of OPT -Out pages; Approved if they are using the code to prevent research index, and if so, for the number of users; He pledged to remove any such symbol by September 3; Providing Congress with the recent audit results and steps that have been taken since the investigation, if any, to improve the access of the user.

“Data brokers and other online service providers bear the responsibility of preventing misuse of consumer data, and the Americans deserve to understand whether their personal information is and how they are used,” citing other tactics that companies use differently-which makes users to pass through multiple screens, and the popup rejected the needs, and the links are flattened in their texts.

Behind the scenes, the data brokers feed the billions of dollars in detailing with detailed personal information-collected without the knowledge or approval of the person. It collects sprawling files often packed with an accurate history of sites, political tendencies, and religious affiliations, then sell these personal files and resell them, and occupy everything from excessive ads targeted to monitoring law enforcement.

Even among the small share of Americans who know this ecosystem for monitoring, their number is still less than an understanding of its real scale – or the methods they can form, influence or intrude their lives.

Earlier this year, Trump Administration She quietly abandoned a proposed base This would have to collect and sell limited brokers sharply and selling Americans’ data by treating some brokers as “consumer reporting agencies” under the just credit reporting law. At the same time, Contract documents He showed that the American intelligence community is a central market to simplify the purchases of the commercial available data – as it shares agencies that share access to large warehouses of sensitive information without the orders of the court required for traditional monitoring.

For survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and chase, the risks are acute. National Network for the End of domestic violence Warning the safety network project The data brokers collect and sell huge amounts of information that can put survivors, adding that withdrawal is already a stressful, fragmented process, forcing people to connect to companies one by one, and move in models that are difficult to find, and re -submit requests regularly while re -delivering and preparing information.

“Instead of asking people to abandon the Byzantine maze to protect their personal information, these companies bear the responsibility of making the tools that allow Americans to exercise their right to privacy that is easy to find and use,” says Hassan.

Sean Vittete, Executive Director of Advance Advancement, a non -profit support group that criticizes this industry, compares the ecosystem for monitoring surveillance behind commercial data markets with those with mice king – an inseparable tangle between entities supported by non -specific data flows. He says: “The damage to the data brokers is manifested in countless ways, but they are all enabled through the same predatory abuse of consumer data.”

“It is compatible with what we see here, the industry cannot be trusted to reduce its own damage.”