At last! California residents can block data brokers selling personal info

Data brokers scrape together your most personal information—including where you’ve lived in the past and who belongs to your family, both immediate and extended—and then sell it openly on the web. As you might guess, that can be a hazard not just for online privacy and security, but also for your real-world safety. But this danger may soon ease, thanks to California’s Delete Act (SB 362), which is now going into full effect.

Passed in 2023, the law requires a system for residents to...