It’s easier for Californians to escape data brokers following a Markup investigation
What they're not telling you: CALIFORNIANS WIN RIGH. T TO DELETE DATA—AFTER JOURNALISTS AND A SENATOR DID THE STATE'S JOB Data Markup investigation, Congress finds data brokers cost consumers tens of billions of dollars" class="na-ilink">brokers deliberately hid deletion pages from search engines, forcing Californians to fight for a right the law already guaranteed them. In the spring of 2025, reporters at The Markup and CalMatters conducted a technical audit of websites operated by data brokers registered under California law. What they discovered was systematic obstruction: thirty-five companies had embedded "no-index" code into their data deletion pages—invisible instructions to Google and other search engines to prevent these pages from appearing in search results.
What the Documents Show
The practical effect was clean and calculated. A California resident exercising their legal right to request deletion of personal data would have to know the exact URL, navigate directly to it, and complete the request. The law itself—California's Consumer Privacy Act—required these companies to provide deletion mechanisms. The law never said those mechanisms could be hidden from the internet's most basic discovery tool. The Markup and CalMatters published their findings in 2024, and the consequences were immediate and measurable.
Follow the Money
Within months, twelve of the thirty-five brokers removed the blocking code. By May 2026, when the outlets conducted a follow-up investigation, only eight companies remained in violation of this transparent obstruction. The shift accelerated after New Hampshire Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan, the ranking member of the Senate Joint Economic Committee, sent letters directly to five major data brokers: IQVIA Digital, Comscore, Telesign Corporation, 6sense Insights, and an unnamed fifth company. Within the Senate inquiry's scope, four of those five engaged with Hassan's committee and agreed to make their deletion pages visible in search results. What the official timeline obscures is elementary: California law required these deletion mechanisms to exist since 2020. The California Attorney General's office—responsible for enforcing the Consumer Privacy Act—had years to discover what two nonprofit newsrooms and one U.S.
What Else We Know
Senator uncovered in weeks. The Attorney General's Consumer Privacy Enforcement Section did not initiate the investigation. The California Public Utilities Commission, which oversees data broker registration, did not flag the pattern. No state agency required compliance until journalists and a federal legislator created public pressure that made continued obstruction politically and reputationally costly. IQVIA Digital, Comscore, Telesign Corporation, and 6sense Insights are major corporations extracting commercial value from California residents' personal information. The "no-index" code was not a technical accident or legacy programming.
Primary Sources
- Source: The Markup
- Category: True Crime
- Cross-reference independently — don't take our word for it.
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