A one-click button to protect your privacy is finally real

It can feel discouraging to care about your personal data flowing everywhere like floodwater. The most visible sign of privacy protections are the blasts of website cookie pop-up notices that seem pointless.

Friends, it’s not hopeless to care about your data privacy.

It’s taken wobbly fits and starts, but California shows what can be accomplished with a relentless focus by citizens, companies, consumer advocates and government officials on giving you real, simple power over your privacy.

Let me tell you about a newly signed law in California that will give state residents a one-time choice that will then forever command companies not to blab their personal information.

Paired with a coming “do not call”-type list to delete information from data-selling middlemen, Californians will soon be world leaders in easy steps to wrest power back from data-gobbling companies.

You can get some of those privacy powers now even if you don’t live in California. I’ll tell you how.

California’s new one-click privacy power

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law Wednesday a measure that will turn any web browser, such as Chrome and Safari, into easy routes to enforce your privacy rights.

Imagine clicking a checkbox once on your computer or phone, and then just surfing the web will command all sites not to sell your address, logs of your workouts and all the times you’ve bought dog food.

That’s the idea in California’s new law, which goes into effect in early 2027.

The law turns privacy rights in California from theoretical to tangible. It could be a model for the country.

That state and 18 others have privacy laws that give people the legal right to order many larger businesses not to sell their personal information or share it to target ads. But those state laws make it difficult to actually opt out.

You often must fill out complicated opt-out forms with dozens of companies. You can blame legislators or corporate lobbying for requiring all this work that few people will do.

Residents in some of those 19 states — including California, Texas, Colorado, New Jersey and Maryland — have the option to make those opt-out demands automatic whenever they surf the web. But they can only do so if they use small browsers that voluntarily offer that option, such as DuckDuckGo, Firefox and Brave.

What’s new in California’s law is that all browsers must give people the same option. That means soon in California, just using Google’s Chrome, Apple’s Safari and Microsoft’s Edge can command companies not to sell your data or pass it along for ad targeting.

Newsom vetoed a similar proposed law last year that Google and Apple didn’t like. This year, the bill sailed through with less corporate opposition, which surprised some consumer groups pushing for the law.

It’s an imperfect but potent and simple way to flex privacy rights — and becomes even more powerful with another simple privacy measure in California.

Starting on Jan. 1, California residents can fill out an online form once to completely and repeatedly wipe their data from hundreds of data brokers that package your personal information for sale.

Data brokers are the invisible glue of the economy built on selling you. They have sold data on people’s driving habits to insurance companies and leaked sensitive information about many millions of job applicants.

Tom Kemp, executive director of California’s privacy watchdog agency, said that the twin laws will give Californians simple and effective choices to protect their data.

“This will be a powerful one-two punch to finally enable consumers to enable privacy rights at scale,” he said.

Try a one-click privacy option now

Picking one of these choices will be a significant privacy step-up for any American.

Even if you’re in a state that lacks a broad data privacy law — that includes New York residents like me — some national companies respect one-click privacy opt-out requests from everyone.

• Use a web browser that acts as your opt-out agent. Those include DuckDuckGo, Brave and Firefox.

The browsers in the background can send legally binding orders, depending on your state, telling websites you visit not to sell information about you. (This happens automatically if you use DuckDuckGo and Brave. You need to change a setting with Firefox.)

• Download Privacy Badger: The software from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a consumer privacy advocacy group, works in the background to order websites not to sell information they’re collecting about you.

You can download Privacy Badger if you use the Chrome, Firefox or Edge browsers on a computer, and the Firefox and Edge apps for Android phones.

• Use Permission Slip from Consumer Reports. Give the app basic information, and it will help you do much of the legwork to tell companies not to sell your information or to delete it, if you have the right to do so.

Some Permission Slip features are free, with options for additional paid services, including deleting your information from data brokers.

• Also consider supporting privacy laws in your state. It’s taken years of voter support, new legislation and legal refinements and government enforcement actions to give Californians strong and simple privacy powers. Those protections are imperfect but meaningful — and it didn’t happen by accident.