California Bill: Chrome, Safari, and other browsers will have to offer Opt-out settings

To enhance consumer privacy, a California state lawmaker, Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, introduced Assembly Bill 3048.

The bill was proposed with the objective to compel browser developers to add a tool that can enable users to opt out of online behavioral advertising across the web.

The proposed legislation would also stop businesses from developing or maintaining browsers without an opt-out preference setting. As of now, the widely recognized opt-out preference signal is the Global Privacy Control, a mechanism designed by privacy advocates to empower users to reject the sharing of online data for advertising purposes. If you have the setting enabled, it will send an opt-out request to every site you visit.

In the absence of this setting, you need to reject behaviorally targeted ads by clicking on individual companies’ opt-out links. Another option is to use a tool by an advertising industry organization to opt out of behavioral targeting by a broader range of companies.

In December 2023,  California’s privacy agency called for state legislation that will mandate browser developers to offer an opt-out tool like Global Privacy Control.

Ashkan Soltani, executive director of the state’s privacy agency, praised Lowenthal’s bill:

All Californians have the right to object to the sale and sharing of their personal information via opt-out preference signals, but most Californians are unable to avail themselves of these important rights because the tools they use to navigate online do not communicate their privacy preferences. It’s high time these vendors let consumers take full advantage of their rights.

According to California’s privacy law, a consumer has the right to reject cross-context behavioral advertising, and Bill 3048 reinforces the obligation for companies to respect the opt-out requests sent through browse-based tools.

Similar laws have been enacted in other states, including Montana, Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, and Texas.

Notably, Mozilla, Duck Dusk Go, and Brave have already built Global Privacy Control into their browsers. Apple used to have a do-not-track setting in Safari, but it was disabled in 2019 due to concerns about potential misuse by ad-tech companies.

On the other hand, Google Chrome already comes with a Do not track setting, which transmits the no-tracking request to all sites you visit. However, the bill proposes a specific opt-out preference, which is different from the Do not track setting on the browser.

We will have to wait and see how other state officials respond and whether Google will comply with the bill & tweak the Do Not track setting to function as an opt-out preference signal.

What are your thoughts on the bill? Share your opinions in the comments section below.