[liberationtech] Consumer Reports study on CCPA agent opt-outs

[Don Marti]

I'm posting to share the results of an experiment to test the authorized agent provisions of the California Consumer Privacy Act. (Authorized Agent makes the CCPA's opt-out-based system practical -- without an agent, it would take you 33 hours to opt out of the 400 registered data brokers in California if you spent 5 minutes on each one!)

In October, we identified over a hundred volunteers in California and asked them to sign a simple permission letter designating CR as their authorized agent. Then we sent “Do Not Sell” or “opt-out” requests to various companies on consumers’ behalf. 

We found that agent opt-out handling by companies could use some work...but 4 of the companies tested have since improved their processes.

More info and a link to the full report are here:

https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/press_release/consumer-reports-study-finds-authorized-agents-can-empower-people-to-exercise-their-digital-privacy-rights-in-california/

This is the first of many authorized agent experiments we are devising, and we hope to continue collaborating to make authorized agents more practical and accessible for consumers.  Next steps may include access and deletion agents that will require more identity verification.

Happy to answer questions about the project.

-- 
Don Marti <dmarti at zgp.org>                   
https://blog.zgp.org/