Earlier this year, I wrote about how your can protect your privacy using California’s Delete Request and Opt-out Platform (DROP) service. DROP launched on January 1, 2026, and data brokers began processing requests on August 1, 2026. Given that data brokers are required to delete data within 45 days of receiving a request, I wanted to see how things were coming along at day 29. Here are my current stats, as reported on my DROP account:
And here is the DROP website’s glossary of deletion statuses:
When browsing the full list of data brokers, I see this:
Unfortunately there are 66 pages to scroll through on my account, and there does not appear to be a way to export the full list of data brokers along with my request statuses. It would be nice for them to add that feature later.
The DROP website provides the following information: “Data brokers will begin accessing DROP soon. Processing becomes mandatory beginning August 1, 2026, but status updates can take up to 90 days to appear in DROP depending on data broker workflows. Your status for each data broker will update once your request is processed.” My interpretation is that either (1) a majority of data brokers (490 out of 656) have not processed my deletion request yet and/or (2) some of those 490 data brokers have actually processed my deletion request, but the statuses have not yet been updated in DROP due to data broker workflows.
While the DROP website says, “Under law, data brokers have 45 days to delete your data after they receive your request,” it seems hard to determine if the law has been broken if the statuses can take 90 days to be updated. In the worst case scenario, a data broker could delete my data on day 45, and then it could take up to 90 days to update the DROP website, so that would be 135 days after August 1 which would be December 14, 2026. Maybe I’ll check back again toward the end of the year to see how well data brokers are complying with DROP requests.
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