U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan, after conducting a survey on the Tag/Calmification Project, urging major data brokers and co-releases by Wired, found that at least 35 companies hid out exit information in search results, making it difficult for people to control their data and protect their privacy online.
Hassan, the top Democrat of the United Economic Commission, noted five top companies on Wednesday – iqvia Digital, ComScore, Telesign Corporation, 6Sense Insights and Findem, noted Wednesday that requiring code on each site appears to be designed to foil missing requests on its website.
No company immediately responded to a request for comment from Cable. During the investigation, no one had previously responded to a request for comment.
California law requires brokers to provide a way to delete personal data; however, the investigation found that dozens of registered brokers masked their exit tools by hiding them in Google and other search results. Consumer advocates call it “smart jobs”, undermine privacy and may qualify as illegal Dark Mode– According to the design decision of California’s privacy regulator, eroding consumers “when claiming their privacy rights or consent, autonomy, decision-making or choice.”
Hassan hopes these companies prove their choice of location. Confirm whether they use code to block search indexes, and, if so, how many users are targeted; guarantee that any such code be removed by September 3; and provide Congress with the latest audit results and steps taken since the investigation, if any, to improve user access.
“Data brokers and other online providers have a responsibility to prevent abuse of consumer data, and Americans should know if and how their personal information is used,” Hassan wrote. Hassan cites other strategies used by the company to enable users to scroll across multiple screens without popping up and looking for links in shrink text.
Behind the scenes, data brokers drive a multi-billion dollar industry that trades with detailed personal information, often collected without the knowledge or consent of anyone. They compiled a vast archive, often containing precise location history, political leanings and religious beliefs, and then sold and reselled these profiles, from advertising that exceeds responsibility to law enforcement surveillance.
Even among Americans who know this surveillance ecosystem, few grasp their true scale, or the way it can shape, influence, or invade their lives.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration quietly abandoned a proposed rule that would strictly limit brokers to collect and sell American data, treating certain brokers as “consumer reporting agencies” by treating certain brokers as Fair Credit Reporting Act. Meanwhile, contract documents show that the U.S. intelligence community is preparing a centralized market to simplify the purchase of commercially available data, i.e., to share access to large repositories of sensitive information for agents without the need for court orders required for traditional surveillance.
For survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking, the risks are dramatic. The National Network, which ended the Domestic Violence Safety Net project, warned that data brokers gathered and sold a large amount of information that could put survivors at risk, adding that opting out was already a tedious, piecemeal process that forced people to contact companies one by one, navigate difficult forms, and recollect and re-collect information based on the information and resubmit information.
“These companies do not require people to browse the Byzantine maze to protect their personal information, but rather have a responsibility to create tools that allow Americans to exercise their privacy rights to be easily found and used.”
Sean Vitka, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group criticizing the industry for its progress in demand, compared the underlying surveillance ecosystem of the commercial data market with the ending of the rat king, an indivisible entity tangled by unparalleled data flows. “The damage caused by data brokers is manifested in countless ways, but it is achieved by the same predatory abuse of consumer data,” he said.
“And consistent with what we’re seeing here, the industry cannot trust to mitigate its own harm.”
