The Markup

Following Markup Investigation, Congress Finds Data Brokers Cost Consumers Tens of Billions of Dollars

A Congressional Joint Economic Committee report estimates that data‑broker breaches have cost American consumers roughly $20.8 billion. The analysis, sparked by investigations from The Markup and CalMatters, links the loss to four major breaches that exposed over 650 million records in the past decade. In response to Senator Maggie Hassan’s outreach, the implicated brokers removed “no‑index” tags and made opt‑out pages more prominent. A new California portal now lets residents delete their information from hundreds of brokers in a single step.