The Markup and CalMatters showed how website code could make it harder for Californians to exercise their right to remove personal data. Now much of that code has disappeared.
What the Documents Show
A person searching for how to delete their information from a data broker would find nothing. The legal right existed on paper. In practice, it vanished. The mechanism was deliberate. The "no-index" tag—a line of website code—serves no legitimate function for a deletion request page.
Follow the Money
It exists only to obstruct discovery. These companies weren't hiding poorly designed interfaces or burying requests under legitimate navigation structures. They were affirmatively telling search engines: do not let people find this. When The Markup and CalMatters published their findings and reached out to the companies involved, the response was swift. Twelve of the thirty-five brokers immediately removed the obstruction code. That's a critical detail: these corporations dropped the practice the moment external scrutiny became public.
What Else We Know
They didn't argue the code was necessary. They didn't claim misunderstanding. The remaining twenty-three companies continued the practice until further pressure materialized. New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan, ranking Democrat on the Senate Joint Economic Committee, sent letters to five major brokers—IQVIA Digital, Comscore, Telesign Corporation, 6sense Insights, and one unnamed fifth company. Four of these corporations engaged with the Senate investigation and agreed to make their deletion pages visible in search results. As of The Markup's follow-up review in May 2026, only eight of the original thirty-five companies were still hiding their pages.
Primary Sources
- Source: The Markup
- Category: True Crime
- Cross-reference independently — don't take our word for it.
Disclosure: NewsAnarchist aggregates from public records, API feeds (Federal Register, CourtListener, MuckRock, Hacker News), and independent media. AI-assisted synthesis. Always verify primary sources linked above.