California DROP Update: Data Deletion Confirmation

In my January post and August update, I wrote about California’s Delete Request and Opt-out Platform (DROP), which allows residents to submit a single request to have their personal information deleted from hundreds of registered data brokers. Now I have my first tangible evidence that it’s working! On October 15, I received an unexpected email from the Lusha Privacy Team confirming that it had completed my deletion request.

I had never heard of Lusha, a company that provides professional contact information to businesses, so I initially wondered whether the email was legitimate. I checked my DROP account and found an entry for Lusha Systems, Inc., dated September 4, 2026. That, combined with the email, strongly suggests that Lusha processed my original DROP request.

Another welcome development is that DROP now provides a downloadable CSV file containing deletion-status information for data brokers. CSV files can be opened in Excel, Apple Numbers, and other spreadsheet applications, making it easier to sort and filter results, identify brokers that haven’t completed processing, and keep a record of your results over time. It’s a useful addition for anyone who wants to track the progress of their requests. You can check your results through the official DROP website. Here’s my current status:

Of course, one successful deletion doesn’t prove that every data broker is complying or that all my personal information has been removed from the internet. Nevertheless, receiving this confirmation is encouraging. I’ll continue monitoring my results to see how many other brokers respond. If you’re a California resident who hasn’t submitted a request yet, visit the official California DROP website to learn more. It’s a relatively small investment of time for a potentially meaningful improvement in your privacy.

“Show Desktop” on Windows OS

I use the Windows 11 Pro operating system for work, and one of my favorite features is “Show Desktop” which can be enabled in Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > “Select the far corner of the taskbar to show the desktop”. This feature has been around since Windows 7. I simply click on the lower right corner of my screen, and poof—all windows are minimized, and I have a clean view of my desktop. For decades, I have grown accustomed to flicking my pointer to the far lower right corner and clicking to show the desktop.

With a recent Windows 11 Pro software update, Microsoft has decided to make my life harder by moving the click target of the Show Desktop feature. It’s still in the lower right corner, but it’s no longer in the FAR lower right corner. The click target is a few pixels up and to the left of the lower right corner. So now instead of mindlessly flicking my pointer to the lower right corner and clicking, I have to go to the lower right corner and carefully reposition the pointer to hit the target. The feature is still there, it’s just harder to use and distracts my attention from what I was doing at the time. I found two alternatives to clicking the harder-to-locate Show Desktop target.

Option #1: Keyboard shortcut. Did you know that you can simply press “Win + D” to show the desktop? It’s so easy! This will be my new default method for showing the desktop, but I need to retrain my brain to use the shortcut because I am so accustomed to using the lower right corner. But if you’re not a fan of keyboard shortcuts, then…

Option #2: Create a bigger Show Desktop button. You can use a shell command that invokes Windows Explorer and tells it to show the desktop. To do this, create a shortcut with the following target:

C:\Windows\explorer.exe shell:::{3080F90D-D7AD-11D9-BD98-0000947B0257}

The alphanumeric ID in curly braces is the CLSID (Class ID) for the Show Desktop function. Name the shortcut “Show Desktop” or something similar, and pin it to the taskbar. You can optionally change the shortcut icon in its Properties settings if you’d like. A set of step-by-step instructions is provided here. By pinning this shortcut to the taskbar, you’ll have a larger target to hit.

If you have also found that the Show Desktop feature is now more difficult to use, I hope you’ll find one of these 2 alternative options to be useful to you. And maybe, just maybe, Microsoft will hear enough negative feedback that they’ll put the click target back into its original location in the far lower right corner.