California’s attorney general backs call for Global Privacy Control adoption with fresh enforcement letters to companies

GPC is a browser-based opt-out tool that automatically sends out a signal requesting websites and ad tech intermediaries to opt-out from selling people’s data. People using Brave and DuckDuckGo’s Privacy Essentials browser extension have the GPC setting turned on by default, for example.

Slow-ish adoption

“At least 50 million people” worldwide are sending out the GPC signal today, up from around 40 million when the tool was launched in October, said Ashkan Soltani, a privacy researcher who helped launch the GPC program. 

However, support of GPC is limited to “privacy-preserving browsers and tools,” Soltani said. He added, “A lot of the browser vendors are reluctant to engage in enabling it.” For instance, some browsers that incorporate other privacy-protective features, including Apple’s Safari, haven’t gotten on board with GPC. Meanwhile, without Google’s Chrome — the world’s most popular browser — in the mix, GPC may not make much of a dent in limiting data collection

That means GPC doesn’t necessarily pose a threat to publishers when it comes to how they gather data, said Don Marti, vp of ecosystem innovation at ad management firm CafeMedia, an early adopter of the tool on behalf of its publisher partners. Because “none of the major browsers have turned it on,” Marti said GPC has little impact on publishers’ ability to gather data that helps generate ad revenue.

Other publishers including The New York Times and The Washington Post signed on to honor the tool when it launched, and Soltani said he’s spotted several small publishers recognizing the GPC signal over the past few months. 

Confusion remains without technical standards

In the absence of technical specifications from the AG’s office for how companies should honor global privacy opt-out signals, companies remain somewhat confused, said Hutnik. “There’s no technical standard for it,” she said. For that reason, companies are reluctant to invest in possibly costly technical fixes. Just how expensive implementation of changes are to acknowledge GPC signals seems to vary from publisher to publisher.

“My clients want to comply with the law,” said Hutnik. “But it requires a lot of money and investment, and if you’re interpreting it wrong and you have to do a 180, it’s not a good use of resources or good for consumers. It’s confusing.”