The CPPA Board Approves Proposal to Require Browsers to Offer Opt-out Preference Signals at their December Meeting

At the December 8, 2023 meeting, the California Privacy Protection Agency (“CPPA”) Board voted 5-0 to advance a legislative proposal to require browser vendors to include a feature that allows users to exercise their California privacy rights through opt-out preference signals. Currently under the CCPA, businesses are required to honor opt-out preference signals as a request to opt-out of sale/sharing. This method would provide consumers with an automatic option to exercise their right to opt-out of sales and sharing with all the businesses they interact with online instead of manually opt-out with each business individually. And major browser vendors have declined to offer these signals, while others do offer the option but not automatically. Which leaves consumers with the cumbersome task of locating browsers or apps that offer the signal option. But, if the final proposal is adopted, the browser vendors will be required to offer consumers the option to enable these signals.