13 Dec 2025 Search

The Delete Request and Opt-out Platform (DROP) is coming to California. California residents will get one web site to delete their information from all 500 registered data brokers in the state. DROP is the result of the California DELETE Act, which Tom Kemp, now director of CalPrivacy, wrote an Analysis on when it passed in 2023.

American Customers Are Madder Than Ever at big companies, so expect plenty of sign-ups. People don’t have time to learn about how different varieties of database marketing work, so DROP will become another thing to click to try to make the crap stop. Some of the shenanigans that people are mad about will be affected by doing DROP, some won’t.

A lot of this stuff gets lumped together with electricity-hungry data centers and AI, (icymi: Meet the AI workers who tell their friends and family to stay away from AI) so the AI controversy will be another source of motivated DROP users. And, of course, Meta is earning billions from scams and fraud—but DROP won’t have that much of an impact on most modern surveillance advertising, which happens inside Big Tech companies.

One area that is likely to get clobbered by the DELETE Act is catalog and DTC retail. Right now those companies are in a customer acquisition cost (CAC) crunch driven by the Meta/Google ad duopoly. And in 2026, as the duopoly continues to squeeze, the number of postal addresses in California available to be bought from brokers is going to plummet. So all the direct to consumer brands are going to be stuck with an even bigger need for a way to reach new customers.

From the brand point of view, that’s probably going to mean:

  • Put more effort into content creators and influencers. They don’t just make content—anyone who can build and keep an audience on today’s Internet can at least fight the algorithms to a draw and come back for more. Brands are going to be better off not just allocating spend by type of media, but instead keeping a long-term stable of sponsored content creators whose audiences match up with the brand’s target customers, and trusting the content creator on which platforms to invest in.

  • Review programs. Sending out products for reviews is a hassle to manage. Scheduling, shipping, and support all require someone who is not just good at email and Fedex, but also a good problem-solver, communicator, and product support expert. Pitching more reviews is hard—but in a CAC crunch, it looks more reasonable.

That means an opportunity from the publisher point of view. Add product and service reviews, or, if you already have them in a core category, add more reviews in related areas. Many online reviews are getting poisoned with AI slop in a way that platforms find hard to fight, so more readers are relying more on niche sites. More: The CAC crunch goes mainstream