What internet data brokers have on you — and how you can start to get it back

Data brokers have long operated in the shadows of the internet, quietly amassing unprecedented amounts of personal information on billions of people across the globe.

The rise of artificial intelligence tools poses the risk of even more personal information being scraped from the internet and an already opaque world of data brokering becoming even more aggressive.

A Pew Research study found that the American public increasingly says it does not understand what companies do with their data.

The lack of comprehensive regulation around data privacy allows data brokers to operate with little oversight.

California was the first to enact comprehensive legislation in 2018 with the California Consumer Privacy Act .

California voters approved an expansion of the CCPA, called the California Privacy Rights Act , which took effect in 2023 .

Experts say deleting the data is an imperfect solution, " a Band-Aid to address a gaping wound" The future of the data broker industry looks both promising and troubling as technological advancements continue.

Until regulation steps in, data brokers will continue to collect as much data as possible.